


This Side or The Other

by narcissablaxk



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drug Use, LOTS of violence, M/M, Major Character Death (not Lawrusso), The Town AU, Unnecessary use of the word Fuck, alcohol mention, alcohol use, bank robbing, drug mention, lawrusso, lots of cussing, not exactly a slow burn, og cobras
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:39:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24401446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: Bank robbing saved Charlestown from destitution; now it was a religion. He worshipped that religion devoutly; You didn't get out of it - you died in it, or you died in prison.Johnny Lawrence robs a bank and his crew takes a hostage - a bank teller named Daniel LaRusso.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Comments: 17
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! So, lots to discuss: 
> 
> This is an AU of The Town, the Ben Affleck movie where they, y'know, rob banks and stuff. If you've seen the movie, great! I hope you enjoyed it. If not, that won't hinder you from understanding what's going on here, I hope. What you need to know is this: 
> 
> Johnny and the OG Cobras rob banks, and Johnny hopes to one day find a way to leave his hometown so he won't have to do that anymore. All of the OG Cobras make an appearance, though not always in the ways you'll expect! ;) 
> 
> Also Shannon and Robby are present in this story - Robby is only a toddler at this time, and Shannon is Dutch's sister, for the sake of keeping the character's connected the way they are in The Town. 
> 
> This story has lots of drugs, booze, and death - there is lots of blood, cussing, and some altogether not very nice stuff. That's the nature of the movie, and I will take some of it out, but it will still be present. If those things bother you, please do not read. 
> 
> Also, major characters will die, but not our two main leads. So don't be frightened by the Major Character Death tag. 
> 
> Anymore questions, feel free to ask me, I'd love to answer!

Johnny Lawrence had a love/hate relationship with his hometown. Boston was a huge, sprawling city of beauty and opportunities, but he didn’t really live in Boston. He lived in Charlestown, a “neighborhood” of Boston, but its differences from the big city might as well have made it a completely different town. Charlestown was, as Johnny always thought, a shithole, an insidious swamp of crime and drugs that had people buried in like ticks – once you were in, you could never get out. 

He had been born here – he knew that meant he would serve a life sentence on the streets of Charlestown, wearing Bruins jackets and Celtics hats, watching his friends and family drink themselves to death or shoot up the wrong kind of drugs until he was the only one left. 

That didn’t mean he was immune to the charms of Charlestown. He had been just like the rest of them up until a few years ago, when he woke up in a puddle of his own vomit with no memory of the past two days. He had given up drugs after that, cold turkey, and that alone had been excruciatingly difficult. He didn’t have enough strength to give up alcohol completely. 

But drugs and alcohol weren’t the only thing Charlestown was rich with. Charlestown was also riddled with bank robbers. It was a family business there; fathers taught sons, gangs stayed together for generations, it was the livelihood of the town. It was an honored job that few were qualified to do, but that didn’t stop little shits barely fourteen robbing packies and convenience stores to get their feet wet. Every illegal activity in Charlestown went back to bank robberies; the money people paid for the weed they sold was from a bank; the money they spent on strippers was from a bank; the money they used to gamble was from a bank. 

Bank robbing saved Charlestown from destitution; now it was a religion.

He worshipped that religion devoutly; his father had robbed banks before him, and his newfound clear mind from drugs made him an invaluable asset to his team. He was the one who assessed the risks for them, he was the one who double checked police response times, who lined up who was getting how much money. It was his job to keep them together, and he was good at it. 

“You ready?” Dutch asked, passing him a mask. They were sitting in the backseat of a minivan, trying to look inconspicuous until they got closer to their target.

“Always ready,” Johnny replied, slipping the mask over his head. The tissue-soft hair of the mask dangled over his shoulders, ghost-fingers tickling him, warning him, but of what, he didn’t know. The mask was a skull, blacked out eyes and grinning teeth. It served their purpose, hid their eyes and every bit of their head, when they added the hood. 

Johnny preferred masks like this one to the other ones they’d worn before. He didn’t like hearing his loud breath echoed back at him when he needed to focus; the skull mask had a sliver of an opening between the teeth that gave him more room to breathe. 

Tommy pulled up to the bank and pulled the emergency break. It was time. 

They had a system; Dutch would go in first, waving his gun and keeping everyone’s attention, Jimmy would block the door, and Johnny would go straight for the person who could open the vault. They never went for the money in the registers – they always had dye packs in them, and taking the bottom bills out triggered a silent alarm. 

The things you learn after generations of perfecting a score. 

Their system worked, and Dutch’s yelling got everyone on the ground. It was Johnny’s job to keep an eye on the people behind the desk; there were buttons back there they could push to call the police. Mostly, people didn’t bother pushing them. They were working at a bank near Charlestown, they knew the drill. 

It was more like a ritual than it was a robbery. Still, sometimes the manager would get cocky, or try to be brave. There was nothing dumber than bravery. So Johnny kept by his post, waiting for Dutch to give him the nod that meant he could continue. 

“Which one you knows the combination to get into the vault here?” he asked. 

He kept his voice friendly, more indifferent than anything else. Dutch was belligerent enough for all of them combined. A man in a sharply tailored navy blue suit raised his eyes to him and picked his hand up from the floor. Johnny nodded at him to stand. 

He wasn’t the bank manager, probably just one of the tellers, but his navy blue suit and purple tie were fashionable enough that Johnny imagined he probably had aspirations about moving up in the bank later. He wondered, briefly, if helping robbers get into the vault would put a stop to those aspirations. 

“When can the vault be opened?” he asked, and the teller’s eyes jumped to where his eyes would be if he wasn’t wearing the mask. He stared, so intently, with his deep brown eyes, that Johnny thought for a moment he wasn’t wearing the mask at all. 

“8:15,” the man said, and Johnny’s eyes went down to his lapel and found his nametag. 

“Don’t lie to me, Daniel,” he said, softly enough that his compatriots couldn’t hear him. “We know the vault can’t be opened until 8:30.” 

Daniel averted his eyes, down to the freshly waxed tile floor. Johnny looked up at the clock. They had two minutes until 8:30. He could hear Dutch behind him, talking about collecting cell phones. It was a typical part of their routine. They collected cell phones, put them in a fish bowl, and poured bleach over them. Sometimes, the people in the bank were angrier about their phones getting bleached than they were about being in a bank when it was robbed. He was always amused by those people. 

The clock ticked over to 8:29, and he reached out his gloved hand to take Daniel’s. Immediately, he jerked away from him, out of surprise more than malice, but Johnny allowed it. He could feel how badly Daniel was shaking. How traumatized would he be when this was over, Johnny thought? 

If he did as he was told, he wouldn’t be traumatized at all, he rationalized. He let his eyes find Daniel’s face again, this time getting nothing but an angled profile, and considered him. 

He didn’t look like someone from Charlestown. He didn’t even look like someone from Boston. Maybe that was why he was so shaken; this was his first bank robbery. Daniel blinked again, purposefully, as if trying to psych himself up, and Johnny wondered if Daniel was going to be one of those poor souls who decided to be brave. 

“Remember,” he said, suddenly enough that Daniel was startled into looking at him again. “It’s not your money.” 

He took his hand again, and, eyes on the clock, gently placed it on the dial right when the clock went to 8:30. Daniel immediately set to turning the dial, his nimble fingers making it look easy. 

That is, until he kept slipping past the numbers. 

He was scared, Johnny knew. He was _terrified._ But the longer the vault stayed closed, the more anxious Dutch and Jimmy would become. An anxious Dutch was dangerous. When he messed up the combination the third time, Johnny took his hand again. 

“Breathe,” he told Daniel firmly. _“Breathe.”_

He was standing so close to Daniel that he could feel his ribs expand and compress with the deep breath. Satisfied, he placed his hand back on the dial. This time, the vault clicked open, and Johnny nudged Daniel out of the way to turn the handle all the way. 

“Back on the ground,” he instructed him. Daniel gave him a terse nod and obeyed, leaving Johnny and Jimmy to pile money into duffle bags while Dutch continued to keep an eye on the crowd in the main room. 

It didn’t take them long, and when the duffle bags were shouldered, there was only the bleaching left to do. They were almost done, another job finished. 

And then they heard the sirens. 

Johnny dropped his gaze down to Daniel, whose foot was perilously close to the red button underneath the desk. He _hadn’t._

Daniel jerked his foot back, but Johnny had bigger problems. Dutch had heard the sirens too. 

“Which one of you fuckers pushed the button?” he asked, stalking over behind the counter, where Johnny was standing. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Johnny said. “We gotta go.” 

“It does matter,” Dutch said sternly. “Was it you, asshole?” 

For a moment, Johnny thought he was talking to Daniel. But then he stepped over Daniel to the man behind him, who was cowering on the tile. The manager, he assumed. 

“Come on,” he said. “We don’t have time for this.” 

Dutch ignored him and pointed the gun at the manager, who tensed and hid his face, as if that would protect him from a gunshot. Still, the gunshot didn’t come. Daniel, on the other side of Dutch, was looking around with wide eyes, as if looking for an escape. _There isn’t one,_ Johnny thought, _don’t try anything._

The sound of the gun hitting the bank manager pulled his attention back to Dutch, who was driving the butt of the gun into the bank manager’s face. The man was screaming, hands in front of him, pleading for mercy, but Dutch was yelling louder. 

“This is what you get for being brave, asshole,” he swung the gun one more time, the sound now wet and sloppy, and straightened up. The manager was crumpled on the floor, unconscious or dead, blood spreading beneath his head. Johnny stared at him for a moment, trying to commit the face to memory. He would be looking for his picture in the obituary section in the next few days, watching the news for a mention of him. 

He needed to know if Dutch could be facing a murder charge. 

“Let’s get going!” he shouted, loud enough that Dutch finally took notice. 

He passed the gallons of bleach to Dutch and Jimmy and let them get to work, choosing the vault as his own territory. He splashed the bleach over everything he could find, trying to be thorough and quick. The cops in Boston weren’t always keen on catching the perpetrators, especially when they thought there would be more work for them if they did. But it wasn’t worth taking a risk. 

The boys were already out the door when he was finished – he was the last one. He jogged to the door, the duffle bag slipping down his shoulders, and slid into the van, a different one from the minivan before. 

He closed the doors of the van and felt it move, breathing a sigh of relief. 

That is, until he saw Daniel, cuffed, bound, and blindfolded, sitting beside Dutch, who looked pleased with himself. 

***

Daniel LaRusso liked his life, such as it was. He’d been living in Charlestown for less than a year, after moving away from his hometown in New Jersey. He’d wanted a change of pace, a change of scenery that wasn’t so different he could never afford to go back to Jersey and visit. He’d wanted to live in the heart of Boston, but that was an unaffordable pipe dream. So now he lived in Charlestown and worked in a bank that could, eventually, pay him enough that he could move to the middle of the city, where he longed to be. 

That is, until the three men dressed like skeletons walked into the bank at 8:17 in the morning and demanded that he open the vault. 

He’d been trained for events like that – he was supposed to comply without causing difficulty – the bank had insurance on the money in the vault. But when he saw an opportunity to press the button, to have the men in masks arrested, he’d taken it. 

He knew that one of them knew he had done it. The one who had watched him open the vault. He’d seen the eyes of the mask, the black emptiness, focused on him while his foot was still on the button. But he hadn’t said anything. Maybe he decided that Daniel wasn’t worth the trouble. 

And then the one who’d beaten Anoush had grabbed him by the back of his collar and forced his hands into zip ties and covered his eyes. 

He thought he knew what fear was before; he realized now that he had no idea. He could feel the van beneath him moving, the turns sharp and unexpected because he couldn’t see; more than once he slid from side to side with no way of catching himself if he fell. A pair of hands always righted him, perfunctory and gloved, neither friendly nor unfriendly. 

He could hear voices muttering amongst themselves, arguing about what they were going to do with him. He’s seen enough of true crime documentaries to know what happened next. He would be found, shot or beaten, in a remote place, probably weeks after he’d been killed, and no one would ever be arrested for his murder. 

“We abducting people now?” The same voice, the one that told him to breathe, was sitting to his right. 

“We’re just having a little bit of fun,” the other one said, a laugh in his voice like this was truly fun for him. Daniel couldn’t understand who would find this kind of situation fun. Perhaps he’d think differently on the other side of the blindfold. 

And then the car came to a stop and he was forced to abandon that line of thought. 

He must have looked more nervous, because to his right, he heard “No one’s going to hurt you, okay?” 

It was so quiet he might have imagined it, but then the louder one, the one who had beaten Anoush, laughed. “Yeah, yeah, no one’s going to hurt you, as long as you do exactly what you’re told. And you can do that, can’t you?” 

Daniel nodded, hating himself while he did it. He must look a fool, blind and bound and nodding like an eager puppy hoping for scraps. But that was what he was, right? Begging for a scrap of life. 

The other one, the one who barely spoke, rummaged in Daniel’s pockets until they pulled out his wallet. He wanted to tell them that they wouldn’t find anything worth their while in there, not while they had approximately six million dollars from the vault in the van with him, but whatever they wanted only took a minute to find, and then his wallet was being slid into the inside pocket of his blazer. 

Someone’s hand grabbed his face and yanked the blindfold free. He looked around hurriedly, but all of them were wearing their masks. All but one were still wearing their hoods. 

“See this?” It was the angrier one speaking, the one who wasn’t wearing his hood. He was holding Daniel’s driver’s license in his face, where he couldn’t miss it. “Now we know who you are, and where you live. If you say shit to anyone, _anyone,_ we’ll come for you.” 

Daniel nodded, not trusting himself to speak. His eyes slid to the left and landed on a tattoo, of a cobra, on the man’s neck. 

That seemed like something that could be important later. 

And then someone was sliding the blindfold back over his eyes, and another was taking off his shoes. The van still wasn’t moving. 

For a moment, he thought he wasn’t about to be released. Maybe showing him his driver’s license had been nothing but a ploy, something to give him false hope. And then he heard the tell-tale sound of the door clicking open in front of him. The sun was streaming through the blindfold, so bright he still couldn’t see. 

“Now walk until you feel water,” a voice told him, and then he was being shoved out of the van, onto rocks. He took a tentative step forward, sliding a little on loose rocks, and then another. It would be convenient, wouldn’t it, if they put him on the edge of some cliff and told him to walk until he felt water? He would go striding right off the cliff to his death. 

He heard the van doors close and the engine start up again, but he didn’t dare hope they were gone until he was several more steps forward. 

And then his bare foot touched water. 

Immediately, like a puppet with its strings cut, he fell to his knees and started to cry. 

***

“Why the fuck are we taking hostages, Dutch?” Johnny asked almost half an hour later, once he was sure none of the sirens he heard were coming for them. “What the fuck kind of an idea was that?” 

Dutch shrugged, holding a can of gasoline. “It was just a bit of fun, Johnny, lighten up. Little prick is free and unharmed.” He gave Johnny that look he hated, like he was seeing some fault in him for the first time. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“It’s dangerous,” Johnny said flatly. “And that’s not how I run things.” 

Dutch laughed. “How _you_ run things?” he asked. “Johnny, you might plan our shit, but you don’t run _us._ If I want to take a hostage, I’ll take a fucking hostage.” 

Johnny swallowed. He and Dutch were long time friends, since they were children. But Dutch had a temper that would randomly explode, or fixate on the simplest things. And when he decided he was angry at you, there was no changing his mind. 

“Just – don’t take unnecessary risks,” he said, trying to be placating. 

But Dutch wasn’t listening anymore. “Are we gonna light this fucking van up or what?” he called out to Jimmy, who nudged Tommy. 

“Get out of the way then,” Tommy yelled, holding up a match. 

They stood in front of the burning van for a moment before hiking the duffle bags up their shoulders and continuing with their routine. 

***

It was another day or two before Johnny thought about Daniel again. His mind was too busy occupied with more important things. He spent the first twenty-four hours after a heist dividing up the money and starting to send it out. Once everyone had their share, they took it to those who could help them spend it without drawing negative attention. Johnny always took his stash to a weed dealer whose name he never learned, spent a few thousand on a huge brick that he sold in his free time, turning that dirty money into clean money that couldn’t be traced to the bank. Then he took a few stacks to shitty bars that still had gambling, spent some on poker and black jack, spending even more on shitty watered-down sodas from the bar. 

Then he paid some of the money to the people he was obliged to pay. Usually that meant a couple of older guys in the neighborhood who had earned enough respect to get a cut of whatever their friends stole. Johnny tried to steer clear of most of them – old geezers talking about their old jobs like it was World War II – but there was one he couldn’t ignore. 

The Florist owned a flower shop (shocker) on the edge of Charlestown, but despite the delicate flowers he was always surrounded by, he was really the only old don that Johnny really felt like he had to pay his respects to. The Florist had taught his father, his father had taught him. Besides, the Florist made it clear that if Johnny didn’t give him a cut, they would be bothered by far more police than usual. John Kreese (his real name) was not a man to be trifled with. At least, that’s what they said, and Johnny didn’t want to have a reason to test the rumors.

So he paid, trying not to think of it as protection money and more like a good investment. 

When all of that was finished, he allowed himself time to relax. Usually, that meant sitting in his crappy apartment and watching _Iron Eagle,_ drinking a Coors by himself. But this time, his carefully coveted relaxation time was going to be impeded upon. 

Tommy was waiting for him at his apartment when he got there, his duffle bag empty and shoulders tired. 

“What’s up?” he asked Tommy amicably enough. “Spend all your money already?” 

“We gotta talk,” Tommy replied, his face ashen. 

Johnny shrugged. “Okay, come inside.” 

“Not here.” 

He followed Tommy several blocks over to the old, abandoned high school where Johnny used to spend his day blown out on Benzos or whatever the fuck they were back then. Tommy shouldered his way into the old, musty gym, Johnny following along behind him. 

“What the fuck is up with the cloak and dagger?” he asked in exasperation. Tommy crossed his arms and didn’t answer. “Tommy, dude, don’t make me beat your ass.” 

“The others are coming,” Tommy said finally. “We have a problem.” 

Johnny always felt ice thread through his veins when he heard shit like that. People always used that phrase at the wrong time, when what they really had was a bit of a snag, and not a full blown fucking problem. But Tommy looked pale, and Johnny was suddenly paranoid. What kind of problem did they have? 

Tommy kept his lips tightly closed until Jimmy and Dutch showed up about ten minutes later. 

“Shit, this place smells like balls,” Dutch said, covering his nose with the collar of his shirt. 

“Your balls smell like this?” Johnny asked absently. “Go to the fucking doctor.” 

“Shut up, asshole,” Dutch laughed, his previous anger apparently dissipated. Johnny felt momentarily more at ease. 

“Is someone going to tell me why we’re here?” Jimmy asked, his nose wrinkled like he also hated the smell of the gym. 

“Show them, Dutch,” Tommy demanded, shifting his stance from foot to foot. 

“Show us what?” 

Dutch held out a little plastic square, offering it out to Johnny to take. He wasn’t sure what it was, the gym was so dark, and he had to shift it into a little box of the fading sunlight, slipping through a hole in the roof, to see what it was. 

Daniel LaRusso’s driver’s license. 

He wasn’t sure what the big deal was, except that LaRusso took an awful photo, and that apparently the license would expire in four years. 

And then Jimmy gasped. 

“What the fuck?” he said. “Look at where that prick lives.” 

Johnny’s eyes went to the address, something he usually glossed over. His own driver’s license didn’t say where _he_ lived. But the address was familiar. 

“He lives a few blocks from here,” Tommy finally burst out, throwing his hands out wide. “What the fuck, are we going to have to walk past this asshole every fucking morning?” 

“No,” Dutch said, snatching the license back. “I’m going to take care of it.”

A chill ran through Johnny so completely he had to suppress the outward shiver. He knew what Dutch meant, what “taking care of it” would entail. 

“I’ll take care of it,” Johnny said, holding his hand out for the driver’s license.

Dutch glared at him. “I just said –”

“You just got out,” Johnny reminded him. “You want to go an intimidate a witness? So they can put you away for life?” 

“I’m not going to intimidate him –”

“Don’t,” Johnny snapped. “I said _I’ll_ take care of it.” 

Dutch narrowed his eyes at him, like he couldn’t quite figure out what Johnny was planning, but passed over the license anyway. Johnny let out a quiet breath of relief and tucked the little plastic card into his pocket, trying to think of a way to “take care of it” in a way that Dutch would find satisfactory. 

A traitorous voice in his head told him he couldn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The FBI starts looking into the recent bank robbery, Daniel is asked in for questioning, Johnny attempts to "take care of it."

Johnny slept fitfully the nights following the robbery – that was new. Stealing money from banks never roused his conscience; it was necessary, it was his job on the side. He spent mind-numbing daylight hours doing construction, covering himself head to toe in sheet rock, dust, chemicals, and then spent the evening planning the things he was _really_ good at. That was the way of the world – he viewed it in much the same way an actress waits tables between shows to make rent. 

But now he was worried – he knew the little plastic square that bore a picture of Daniel LaRusso was the cause, but his mind always skated over him vaguely, like it didn’t want to open that can of worms yet. No, his mind always seemed to settle on Dutch in those late night hours, when he was staring at the ceiling fan turning listlessly, circulating almost no air at all. 

How to handle Dutch. 

Usually it was easy as allowing him to talk big shit while not rising to the bait. But now, the bait seemed unnecessary – he was always on the edge of exploding, on the edge of some imagined slight that would put anyone in his bad books for days on end, walking on eggshells and hoping he didn’t decide to start throwing punches. 

It was one thing to beat a bank manager – shit happened – but to take a hostage was an escalation that Johnny couldn’t shake. Hostages were messy, they retained information on you, they could get you caught. And hurting one of them would send them all up the river for life. 

It took him several days to decide what to do with the driver’s license. He knew it couldn’t be found on him, and he sure as shit wasn’t about to give it to Dutch – he stood over his kitchen sink and cut it into tiny pieces, the plastic flying off the scissors like ping pong balls, and collected all the pieces, depositing them in public dumpsters a few at a time over several days. 

It was paranoid, but that’s what Dutch had done to him. 

***

“Anyone see anything?” Amanda asked, pulling her sunglasses down far enough to take in the burnt crisp of the van, still smoking in the early morning light. Bobby, beside her, sidled up at the sound of her voice, his notebook open and ready to provide. 

“Of course not,” he said, his voice short. “No one ever sees anything. These people all close ranks.” 

“They’re _your_ people,” Amanda said slyly. Bobby gave her a sideways glance and rolled his eyes. The sun was bright in her eyes, glinting off the rims of old cars, far older than the probably stolen rims that adorned them. The sky was a painful bright blue. She slid her sunglasses up higher. She didn’t need her vision compromised. She couldn’t afford to miss any important details, though experience told her there wouldn’t be any. 

“Yes, and it’s always such a fun reunion when I get here,” he said, turning his gaze out to the crowd that had gathered when the FBI vans arrived. He made eye contact with an old woman in the mob, still wearing rollers and a faded pink nightgown. She gave him the finger, spitting onto the sidewalk for good measure. 

“Good ol’ Charlestown,” Amanda laughed. “Let’s see if forensics can get anything out of the van that we can connect with the other ditched car or the bank.” 

“Everything’s been bleached,” Bobby said ruefully. “The typical.” 

“Try anyway,” she insisted. “Let me know if you hear anything.” 

“Agent Tomas, Agent Brown,” turned her away from her partner and toward a crime scene investigator. “Word came on the other van. Plate came back stolen, registered to a different car than the one we found it on.” 

She shrugged, an easy laugh shaking free. “Typical,” she muttered. Bobby, beside her, agreed. 

***

Amanda found the hostage sitting at an empty desk when she got back to the office, a temporary work space that they always occupied when the FBI came to Boston. She wondered, looking around at the bland paint job and anonymous cubicles, if it remained like this when they were somewhere else, investigating other matters. 

“Daniel LaRusso,” she said plainly. It wasn’t a question. The man in question looked up from his tightly clenched hands and met her gaze. She could read the fear there, it was practically pouring off of him. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” 

She let him speak at his own pace, noting the places in his story where he seemed stuck, confused, or frightened. He hadn’t noticed much in the way of detail, he’d said early on. Everything about them was covered or hidden. She expected as much – that was a typical component of a Charlestown robbery. 

“But they took you as a hostage,” she said when his story had slowed to a crawl. “Why is that?” 

He shrugged, the movement jerky and unplanned. “One of them just said they waned to have a little bit of fun.” 

“You were the employee who pushed the panic button,” Amanda pointed out, looking down at her notes. “Do you think that’s why they took you?” 

Daniel’s eyes left hers to look around the room, focusing on nothing in particular. “I don’t think so. I mean, they never said as much.” 

She leaned forward, the better to get his attention back to her. “But they didn’t kill you.” 

“No,” he said simply, and one of the crime scene techs chose that opportune moment to slide in and start taking his fingerprints. 

“And you never tried to run?” 

“No,” Daniel’s face hardened for a moment, as if offended by the question. 

“You didn’t try to escape at all?” 

“They had guns,” he hissed, and in leaning forward, almost bumped the tech below him.

“It’s just to rule you out of any forensic evidence we find,” she reassured him when he looked pale. 

He nodded, trying to appear valiant, but his hands were shaking so badly the printing was taking longer than usual. She wanted to reassure him in a way that would make him stop shaking; he was a better witness when he was at ease. But she couldn’t think of a way to do it. It wasn’t often they had hostages to work with, after all. 

She was used to dealing with hostile witnesses, not frightened ones.

“We’re going to catch these guys,” she promised, hoping the cliché line would work. “You’re going to be okay.” 

“They have my driver’s license,” Daniel muttered back, squeezing his own hands as if to stop the shaking. “They know where I live.” 

“I’ve already increased police presence in your neighborhood, Mr. LaRusso,” she answered patiently. “You’re completely safe.” 

Daniel gave her a disbelieving look that she didn’t comment on. The truth was, the witnesses were never really safe. Boston cops were, more often than not, dirty. Bank robbers were more protected in Daniel’s neighborhood than anyone else. If they wanted to get to him, they would. 

But her instinct told her they wouldn’t unless they thought Daniel had something to give the Feds. And since he really didn’t – she figured he’d be safe. 

She neglected to tell him that. 

***

Johnny had made his decision sitting at the Bunker Hill Monument, watching Daniel walk down the street to his front door, his navy-blue suit replaced with dark grey slacks and a deep green shirt. He was just going to see what he knew. It would be easy – be friendly, be accommodating, and everything he wanted to know would be given to him. 

He left his epiphany to be acted upon the next day. In the meantime, he was expected elsewhere. 

Dutch and the gang were waiting for him at The Tap, already several drinks deep. Johnny used to love being there – it was dark, dusty, almost humid, the floors always sticky. It was a place that had no place to judge you, no higher ground to stand on. It used to make him feel powerful. Now it just made him feel disconnected. 

He’d been sitting at the bar for only a few minutes before Dutch slid up to his right side. “I wish you drank enough to be any fun,” he whined, tapping the edge of Johnny’s Jack and coke with a dirty finger. “When you decide to be fun again, maybe I’ll buy this place.” 

Johnny decided to use that as motivation to stay as sober as possible, but he only nodded and laughed with Dutch. 

“Is my big brother being funny again?” he felt his body tense before he even saw her; he could smell her perfume at his back. 

He turned halfway toward her, all the better to keep Dutch in his sights. “Hello, Shannon,” he said wearily. 

“ _Hello, Shannon,_ he says,” she mimicked, “Like I’m a fuckin’ disease.” 

“I’m just tired,” he muttered, hoping she’d take a hint. But, as usual, it went right over her head. Probably because she was high. He could almost taste it on her, thick and sluggish. He wondered what she was on this time. He resisted the urge to ask, lest she think he cared. 

“I heard you got in a fight with some chick downtown,” he said instead, hoping to engage her in a topic that wouldn’t drive him up the fucking wall. 

She gave him what she thought was a sultry glare. “Do I look like I got into a fight?” she offered him one side of her face, and then the other, and he had to admit that there wasn’t a scratch on her. He thought he could see a mark on her ear, where her hoop was, but didn’t comment on it. 

“Where’s Robby?” he asked. 

She was still talking about the fight. “Fuckin’ bitch thinks she can talk shit to me in a bar? What, like you think there aren’t any white women left in Charlestown who will put up with that shit? What did you say?” 

He winced at her accent, extra grating when she was doped up. “I said _where’s Robby_?” 

“He’s asleep, Johnny, what the fuck do you think?” she asked. “Suddenly giving a shit about your kid?” 

He didn’t rise to the bait, didn’t answer her. The truth was, he was pretty sure Robby wasn’t his son. Shannon had told him several times in varying stages of drunkness that she didn’t know who Robby’s father was. Still, Johnny felt worry stab at him for that kid at random moments. Was he eating well? Was he learning his alphabet? 

He made a flimsy excuse about being right back and found his way to the door, shouldering it into the cool night air. He inhaled deeply, trying to scrape out the gunk from his lungs that he felt sticking there after any amount of time in The Tap, and strode off down the street. 

No one would notice if he wasn’t there, he thought hopefully. 

***

It wasn’t hard to find a spot to watch Daniel from; Johnny sat on a stoop, wearing his sunglasses, pretending to smoke a cigarette. He really lived only a few blocks from Johnny’s apartment – he wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse about the necessary evil of stalking him. When Daniel appeared, around eleven in the morning, carrying a laundry basket, Johnny stood and retreated to his apartment, a plan forming. 

He found Daniel in the closest, most convenient laundromat from his apartment; a decrepit little place that Johnny himself frequented. He set his basket (only half full) on one of the tables and let his eyes find Daniel, sitting in front of a washing machine, already going. 

It took him a surprising amount of time to build up his courage; Johnny rationalized that he was just waiting for the right moment. He shoved some clothes into a washer, the colors unimportant when his mind was occupied with something else. He had a pocket full of quarters, extra prepared. The little machine that converted dollars to quarters in the corner was finicky – he knew that from years of living in the neighborhood. 

But Daniel didn’t. 

Johnny could see him methodically feeding the machine the same crumpled up dollar bill over and over again, the only outward display of his frustration the tapping of his foot against the tile. After a moment, Johnny took pity on him and stood, accepting that this was as good a time as any to introduce himself. 

He gathered some quarters in his hand from his pocket, thinking to offer them to Daniel, give him a funny anecdote about how the machine never really worked, and then go from there. But right as he opened his mouth to speak, the machine whirred and sucked up the dollar bill, leaving Johnny no excuse for creeping up behind Daniel, who now had the quarters he needed. 

Daniel gave him a questioning look in his turn around, but didn’t speak. He went back to his laundry, content to move one load to the dryer and take the dryer’s contents and start folding. Defeated, Johnny reclaimed his seat and picked up the newspaper. 

He watched Daniel from the corner of his eye, still so sharply dressed at the fucking laundromat (who the fuck did that?), looking for another opening. 

The longer he waited, the more ridiculous he felt. It shouldn’t be this difficult to talk to someone at the laundromat! He steeled himself, determined to have a fucking conversation even if it was awkward, if only to make him feel like he had tried to “take care of it” as Dutch said. 

Daniel, at the corner of his eye, had paused in his folding, his hand lingering on the collar of a shirt laid out on the counter. Johnny stood, and saw the splatter of blood, stubbornly lingering on the white shirt, and knew. 

Bank manager’s blood. 

He’d planned to have something different to say, but even now, it was hard to remember what it was. “Excuse me,” he said instead. 

Daniel flinched at the sound of his voice and turned. There were tears in his soulful eyes, his index finger lingering near the bloodstain on his shirt. 

_Fuck._

“Are you alright?” Johnny asked.

“Fine,” the response was curt, stronger than Johnny expected. He blinked in surprise, and raised a hand in mock surrender. 

“Okay,” he said, retreating to his seat. 

Well what the _fuck_ was he supposed to do now? 

He was still thinking about it when Daniel turned back to him and cleared his throat. He looked up, shaken out of his thoughts, suddenly paranoid. Had Daniel recognized his voice? The way he walked? He’d heard witnesses retained a considerable amount of information. 

“I just wanted to say sorry –”

 _Oh._ “You don’t have to –”

“It’s just been a really shitty month and it all just caught up at once,” Daniel explained, motioning to the laundry as if that explained it. Johnny followed the gesture with his eyes, noting that for someone as upset as he was, Daniel insisted on talking with his hands even when it wasn’t quite necessary. 

He enjoyed watching it. It paired well with the copper fire he saw in Daniel’s eyes in the midday light. 

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he said finally. “Really.” 

“Thanks,” Daniel said, and even in his sheepishness, Johnny found him graceful. 

“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink or something?” he asked, the words as much a surprise to him as they were to Daniel. “I think that’s what people do, anyway.” 

Daniel raised his eyebrows at him. For the first time, Johnny realized what a stupid question it was. He could see himself, suddenly, through Daniel’s eyes. Ratty jeans, cuffed years ago and never unfolded, work boots, a crappy undershirt and an unbuttoned shirt over it, probably with a hole in it somewhere. 

By contrast, Daniel was, frankly, stunning, with a single tear lingering on his cheekbone and gold streaks in his eyes. They certainly looked an odd pair, just talking in a laundromat. Talking a bar would be unheard of.

Suddenly, with an almost sit-com-like rush, Johnny realized why Daniel was looking at him like that.

“Oh, _no,_ no drinks right now, it’s eleven in the morning,” Johnny rushed to clarify. “I mean, like, at a normal time that people drink.” 

What was _happening?_

Daniel furrowed his brows at him like he was trying to figure out if Johnny was serious. 

“I don’t even really drink,” God, _why_ was he still talking? _Why_ wasn’t Daniel saying anything. “I mean, but I’d have one with you. Or we can just go to dinner.” 

“Dinner?” Daniel repeated, something curious dancing over his face for a moment. Johnny wished he could ask him to explain what that meant. 

“I mean, that’s what I’m going for,” Johnny laughed nervously, trying to attribute his nerves to his necessary deception. “Or I can give you some quarters for the machine and mind my business.” 

Daniel glanced back at the machines like he’d just remembered they were there. Johnny knew how he felt. 

“Dinner, yeah,” he said finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll, no doubt, have noticed that Amanda and Bobby are the two FBI agents. I knew I wanted Bobby to play one, especially because Cobra Kai's Bobby became a pastor, which doesn't really jive with the rest of the OG Cobras. He didn't seem like he fit the bank robber-schtick, so he's now the FBI agent from Charlestown, a parallel to "betraying" his Cobra-sensibilities when he became a pastor. I chose Amanda for the other FBI role because I couldn't think of any other adult Cobra Kai character that could fit an FBI agent-type character. Amanda can be quite stern when she wants to be, so it was the closest I could get. 
> 
> Also Amanda's last name in this is Tomas. I tried to find a canon maiden name for her, but came up empty. If anyone knows it, please let me know!
> 
> Also, you will have noticed that Shannon is Dutch's sister in this scenario. Their sibling bond is important to the plot later, which is why I left it. In The Town, the main character is almost 100% sure that the child isn't his; in this case, we're going with he doesn't know for sure, because I love Robby too much to have him discarded completely. In this story, Robby is only a toddler.
> 
> Also sorry for her "white people in Charlestown" comment; in the movie she says something much worse but I didn't want to use it.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny is pressured into lining up the next job - Johnny and Daniel go on their date, and discuss Charlestown. Amanda pays Daniel a visit.

Johnny always hated this part – after a good job, and all jobs where you didn’t get caught were good in hindsight, when the adrenaline gilded it in gold and made everything shiny, Dutch was always anxious to get to the next one. He understood the sentiment, it was a drug, an addiction that gave you a rush. When the rush was over, you wanted another one. You chased it. 

But Dutch didn’t have to worry about the details. Dutch just had to show up on the day and do what he does best. 

“This is our fuckin’ job, Johnny. What are you gonna do, just not show up to work the next day?” 

Jimmy, beside him, snorted a laugh into his paper-wrapped bottle of booze. “You don’t even have a job, Dutch.” 

“Fuck off, Jimmy,” Dutch shot back, but there was a smile on his face. “I’m just saying, we gotta line something up.” He looked out over the baseball field, squinting his eyes past the glare of the sun. It was only mid-afternoon, prime time for them all to be at work, yet here they were, wasters trespassing. 

“Have you even gotten rid of your money yet?” Johnny asked them all, turning back just in time to see Tommy passing Dutch a half-smoked joint. “And burying it in the ground or putting it in fuckin’ mailboxes doesn’t count.” 

They all laughed at this, a good-natured ribbing, but none of them answered. 

“I’m looking at a couple of things,” Johnny continued, dragging his fingers through his hair. “A Newton thing and a much closer thing.” 

“Newton’s a fucking haul in a chase, Johnny,” Tommy pointed out. Dutch swiped his hand at him, a backhanded smack on his leg. 

“Who gives a fuck?” Dutch asked to the stadium at large, abandoned, a gaping wound in the earth, like them. “Fire one of them up.” He leaned down, into Johnny’s space, and whispered, “You taken care of that bank teller yet?” 

Johnny swallowed, his throat working over the sudden obstruction, and didn’t answer. Dutch leaned back in his seat, satisfied, but what he had achieved, Johnny couldn’t tell. 

***

Daniel stared at the white shirt, the blood still splattered near the collar. He’d Googled how to get blood out of clothes, but nothing he tried quite worked. He wondered, in a weird way, if it was a symbol of something. But no, that was stupid, and this was reality. Auspicious signs didn’t exist here. 

He shoved it into his trash can, suddenly tired of looking at it, and went back to his basket of folded laundry. If he didn’t force himself to put it all away in one go, it would just sit there, in the basket, until he had to wear it, fold lines in it and everything.

He was halfway done when there was a knock at his door. 

Agent Tomas was standing on his doorstep, sliding her sunglasses down. Her eyes were a startling shade of blue – he was surprised he hadn’t noticed them before. 

“Agent Tomas,” he said in surprise. “Um, come in,” he stepped aside, offering the entry of his apartment to her. She gave him a cursory nod before stepping in, her eyes scanning the walls systematically. He wondered if that terrifying x-ray vision look she had was something she obtained in FBI agent training or something, but found he didn’t really want to know. 

“I came to check on you,” she said, and Daniel led her into the living room, a cramped room with a nice set of windows that he loved looking out of. “I know you were nervous about the suspects coming back.” 

He nodded. “You know, I actually feel a bit better.” 

“You do?” 

He sat on the armchair, letting her have the couch. “You told me that I would feel like I was grieving, that that’s what happens in situations like this.” She nodded at him, patient. “I felt like I hadn’t, y’know, cried enough or something, because people worry about that kind of thing.” 

She raised her eyebrows at him. He wondered what that meant. 

“And then I just kind of cried. It was at the laundromat, and it was super embarrassing, but –” he shrugged. 

“That’s good,” she said. “Things will get easier now.” 

He nodded. “So, is there any progress?” Surely that’s why she was here, right? There was no other reason that he could divine from the inscrutable look on her face, her eyes both warm and cold at the same time. 

“I think so, yes,” she said, but didn’t offer him anymore information. “So, tell me about the laundromat.”

“There was this really nice guy there,” Daniel said, turning halfway to look out the window. He could see the man’s eyes if he thought about it, reflected in the blue sky. He realized that they’d never really introduced themselves to each other. They had just jumped straight to a date. 

“And?” 

“He kind of asked me out,” Daniel continued, trying to shake the revelation free. “I said yes, you know, sort of in the moment. I think he works in construction or something.” Based on his attire, it wasn’t that he really knew anything. “I don’t know. Maybe I won’t go.” 

He knew the moment he said it that it was a lie. He would go. 

“Oh,” Agent Tomas said blithely, and Daniel felt, for a moment, like he’d made a mistake. 

***

Johnny felt a dawning sense of irony as he got dressed for his date with Daniel. He filled his wallet with bills that he’d laundered after the robbery, his lips quirked upward in a sardonic smile. How would Daniel feel if he knew their date was being paid for by money obtained through the robbery at his bank? 

It was dangerous to think things like this. Johnny pushed the thought from his head and patted his pockets to make sure he had all of his essentials: his phone, his wallet, and the knife strapped to his leg. 

You could never be too careful. 

They met at the restaurant; Johnny hadn’t wanted to push Daniel to tell him where he lived. That was information he wanted to re-learn in good time, when he’d earned it. He found Daniel sitting at their table, the dim light splashing bits of light and color on his face, and Johnny was suddenly taken with the way Daniel’s skin glowed, almost satin. 

He took the seat across from him, noticing how Daniel’s eyes took in his suit, an acquisition from a thrift store that Johnny was particularly proud of, a smile taking over the corner of his face. Johnny took that as a good thing. 

It was almost easy to get through the small talk – Daniel was good at it: disarming and charming without being romantic, his insights on the comments a little dry and honest. Johnny wanted to keep asking him banal questions all night just to see what he’d say. 

“Where are you from?” Johnny asked, and Daniel glanced up from his meal, the candlelight sparkling in his eyes. 

“Jersey,” he said coyly. “You can’t tell from the accent?” 

“I have a Boston accent but I’m from Charlestown,” Johnny replied. “The accent isn’t always completely accurate." 

Daniel looked momentarily confused, and Johnny thought he was going to have to explain the divide between Boston and Charlestown, but after a moment, he took it in stride. 

“Jersey,” Johnny added. “It’s nice there.” 

He’d never been there. 

“It’s okay,” Daniel shrugged. “I always think it’s like, the promised land because I miss home sometimes, but it was really just playing in busted fire hydrants in the summer, you know?” 

He didn’t, but he nodded and smiled like he did, just to see Daniel smile back at him. 

“What do you do?” he asked. 

For a horrible, slow moment that seemed to screech to a halt, Johnny thought about telling him the truth. How easy it would be just to say the words now, to let them slip off his tongue and land on the table. 

“Demolition, mostly,” he answered. “The owner calls the company Sky Makers. Every time we knock down a building, he says we’re not destroying a building, we’re making more sky.” He leaned forward a little onto his elbows at the edge of the table. “But it’s just as exhausting as knocking down a building. I use a rock to beat up a rock and then clock out at the end of the day. It’s like an episode of the Flinstones every day.” 

“Don’t sugarcoat it for me,” Daniel retorted, giving Johnny a ducked-chin grin and almost knocked his breath from his lungs. 

He steadied himself and pushed forward. “What about you?” he asked. “What do you do?” 

If he hadn’t known to look, he might have missed the spasm that crossed Daniel’s face. Immediately, he felt guilty for asking. He tried to school his face into something politely curious – it wouldn’t do to have Daniel wondering why he was looking at him like that. 

“I – uh, I work at a bank,” he said, and the sparkle was gone from his eyes, his hand around his glass of wine limp and unmoving. 

“Oh yeah?” Johnny asked. “That’s a good job.” 

Daniel winced, and took a sip of wine. 

“What? You don’t like it?” 

Daniel looked away, off somewhere else. “We got robbed last week. They, uh, made me open the vault, took me hostage. Made me take off my shoes.” He blinked and looked back at Johnny, suddenly present again. “I don’t know why I’m fixated on that, but now I’m barefoot in all of my dreams.” 

“But you weren’t hurt,” Johnny felt, weakly, like he might sound like he was defending the robbers, but the comment sailed over Daniel’s head. 

“No,” he said. “But Anoush was. My boss. The silent alarm went off and they…assaulted him.” 

“All because of a silent alarm?” he felt clammy all over, like he was visibly sweating. 

Daniel didn’t answer for a while, his gaze disconnected, like he was seeing it replay. Johnny wished, with a sudden rush, that he knew him well enough to take his hand, like he had done in the bank, with his mask and hood. But he couldn’t, not here. 

“I thought I was going to die,” he said softly. “I was resigned to it. I thought about all of the things I wished I could have done, the people I wished I could have met. And then they let me go, out in east Boston, where the planes come in.” He paused, swallowing; Johnny could see his Adam’s apple working at it. “The FBI said it would feel like I was in mourning.” 

Johnny felt like the room had suddenly gone still. “You’re working with the FBI?” he asked. 

He could hear Dutch’s voice in his head. _Take care of it. Take care of it. Take care of it._

He shook his head to get the voice out, but it was still there, chanting in the back of his mind.

“This agent. She’s been great so far,” Daniel was oblivious, but Johnny felt like he’d been made. 

“And – and what does she do?” Johnny asked, leaning forward, wishing suddenly that he’d had a glass of wine to find strength in. “Calls you, comes by, checks in?” 

Daniel shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” 

“And you’re happy with the investigation?” He was being painfully obvious now, he could hear it in the falseness of his words, the way they came out of his mouth, clumsy and awkward, formed by someone else and set free without review. “Progress? Suspects?”

“It’s not really something that makes you happy,” Daniel said off-handedly, his fingers trailing down the stem of his wine glass. “They don’t really tell me much, except that, apparently, all robbery investigations start in Charlestown.” 

“Do they?” Johnny wanted to laugh. “Do they see you as a suspect?” 

“Me?” Daniel asked. “Why me?” 

“Well, they hurt that other guy, but not you,” Johnny was trying to rationalize with the information that Daniel had given him. 

“No, Agent Tomas hasn’t said anything like that to me,” Daniel’s eyes were closing off again. Guilt stabbed at him again. 

“I just –” he reached out to take Daniel’s hand and thought better of it, reaching for his glass of water instead. Daniel’s eyes were on his hand. “Be careful. Do you have a lawyer?” 

Daniel didn’t answer, his eyes searching his surroundings, trying to find the correct answers, the solutions, in the faceless other patrons, in the thick velvet curtains, in the silverware, discarded on the table. 

Johnny actually did take his hand this time, just a gentle brushing of their fingers. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s talk about something else. We don’t have to talk about this.” 

“I’m sorry –”

“No,” Johnny said, pulling his hand back. “It’s my fault.” The statement was so true it felt like a confession. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t even know the story.” 

***

Daniel let Johnny walk him home. They wandered down the street, stride aimless, Daniel’s eyes up on the buildings beside them, as if he was seeing them for the first time. Maybe he was. Johnny tried to keep his gaze to the sidewalk, but he kept glancing to Daniel, checking his facial expression, watching him observe the neighborhood. 

“You know, I thought I’d found such a gem,” Daniel said softly a block from the restaurant. 

“Did you?” Johnny asked. “A gem? In Charlestown?” 

“In my apartment,” Daniel clarified. “I found a nice place that was cheap, close enough to my job, and then I found out that this place was built around a prison.” He laughed, the moon lighting his face gently, making the smile look more genuine than it was. “So I’m in a neighborhood full of inmates’ families, known for robberies and unsolved murders.” 

“The FBI tell you that?” Johnny asked. It was always the FBI who said shit like that. Cops didn’t mention it, and townies didn’t want to bring it up either. It was a point of pride, living in a place like this, knowing what it would do to your reputation and doing it anyway. 

“Something like that,” Daniel said. “I asked how such a small place can have so many robbers and murderers. She’d looked at me like I was crazy for not knowing.” He sighed. “And y’know, not everyone here is a bad person.” 

Johnny felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Half of him rejoiced that Daniel thought that highly of him, but the other half was whispering that he _was_ a bad person. He was the bad person in this scenario. 

And then Daniel reached over and threaded his fingers through his, and he resolved to ignore his conscience. 

Did the voice in his head really matter? It was just dinner, just a conversation, there was nothing wrong with that. He listened to Daniel talk, feeling his fingers twitch in Johnny’s hand, itching to illustrate a point, to point at something, to wave at nothing in particular. It was like Charlestown had suddenly become a different town, one that Johnny could see through Daniel’s eyes, full of promise and possibilities and misunderstood people. 

He let Daniel lead him up to the door of his apartment, looking around like he had never seen it before. Daniel fished in his pocket for his keys, and stuck the key in the lock. 

He didn’t turn the lock. 

“I had a good time,” he said earnestly, and when he turned to look at Johnny, he forgot all about Charlestown, about banks, about the little plastic driver’s license. There was just this man, beautiful in his openness, smiling up at him, reluctant to open his front door because that would mean the night would end. 

He could kiss him, if he wanted. And he really _did_ want to. Daniel wouldn’t push him away, wouldn’t pretend like that hadn’t been his intention. He was an open book, all of the time. Johnny envied it, the transparency. 

He knew, already, that Daniel would taste like wine, a heady, addicting taste that would leave Johnny wanting long after he was gone. 

That was dangerous for them both. 

“We should do it again,” Johnny said instead, leaning in to give Daniel a kiss on the cheek. 

When he pulled away, Daniel was looking at him with a half-smile that Johnny couldn’t read. 

“I’d like that,” Daniel finally turned the key in the lock and stepped inside. “Good night, Johnny.” 

Johnny waited until he heard the sound of the lock click before he retreated across the street, the smell of Daniel’s cologne lingering in his nose, his soft skin still phantom-pressing against his lips. 

“What the _fuck_ am I doing?” he asked to no one.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amanda and Bobby catch a break; Johnny and Daniel learn more about each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for drug use mention.

Amanda Tomas was impossible to read. At least, that’s what it felt like to Daniel, sitting across from her at a coffeeshop during his lunch break at the bank, a cup of espresso in front of him and a cup of green tea in front of her. She called him early in the morning and asked to meet, giving him no reason that he could remember once he hung up the phone. But that was what FBI agents did, right? They kept their nose to the grindstone until they solved the case. 

At least, that’s what all of the movies talked about. 

“You know,” Daniel said, tracing his finger around the edge of his cup, “Someone told me I shouldn’t be talking to you without a lawyer.” 

He meant it as mostly a joke, but Johnny’s words had replayed in his mind over and over during the night, and by the time he got up that morning, his mind had convinced him that Johnny was probably right. Johnny was from Charlestown, wasn’t he? He would understand these things better than Daniel would. 

Amanda laughed, pulling the straw out of her cup and sticking it back in absently. “Really?” she asked. “Someone from Charlestown said that?” 

“How did you know?” Daniel said. What did it matter who said it? “So should I?” 

“It epitomizes this place,” Amanda said, lowering her volume, her bright blue eyes casting around the rundown shop. “Clannish, parochial, rude. I get cursed at every time I walk down the street, and for what? For doing my job?” She leaned back in her chair, suddenly almost smug. “This isn’t very professional of me to say, but people who tell you to lawyer up are always guilty.” 

“ _Always_?” Daniel repeated, ready to point out that such an absolute statement was bound to be wrong. 

But Amanda caught his gaze and held it. “Always. Whoever your friend is that wants you to lawyer up, they did something.” 

“Can I ask you a question?” Daniel asked, trying to shake her words free from his head before they could take root. “Like, ask a question and get an answer?” 

“Depends on the question,” Amanda replied plainly. 

“Am I a suspect?” he asked. 

She grinned at him, taking a sip from her green tea. She was silent so long Daniel was ready to resign himself to a non-answer, when she said, “Would I ask you out if you were a suspect?” 

That was…not what he was expecting. Still, he tried to take it in stride. What could an embarrassed FBI agent do if he told her they were, in fact, not on a date? Would he suddenly become a suspect then? He didn’t want to think that Amanda was someone who would do something like that, but she was, apparently, the kind of agent who asked victims on dates, so…he couldn’t be sure. 

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “Would you?” 

“Not if I wanted a conviction,” Amanda replied with a shrug. 

The words came out before he could stop them. “I might be seeing someone already.” 

Amanda raised her eyebrows at him, still not offended, but simply amused. “That guy from the laundromat?” 

There was almost a laugh to her voice that he didn’t like; he remembered suddenly the way Johnny asked, sincerely, if he had a lawyer, if he was being protected. Just because Amanda thought all Charlestown guys were criminals didn’t mean they were. 

She must have seen something in his face that she didn’t like, because she quickly schooled her face into something more professional. “That’s good,” she said noncommittally. “Yeah, that’s good.” 

“Besides, isn’t there a thing about not dating victims?” he couldn’t help but take the stab where he could. He considered it payback for her disdain for Johnny without ever meeting him. She laughed lightly and didn’t say anything. 

***

Amanda was still thinking about Daniel hours later, when Daniel had no doubt gone back to work and she was looking over witness statements from a new robbery – a stick up just outside of Charlestown from that morning. Asking Daniel out to coffee had been a tactical error; she figured he might be easier to get information from if he felt like they had some sort of personal connection, but that had proven to be incorrect. 

No, the man from the laundromat had gotten there first, and it was annoying her that she couldn’t figure out why she thought of this faceless man that way. 

“Check this out,” Bobby’s voice brought her back to the office, to the work at hand, and she closed the file and swiveled her chair to meet him. He passed her a file, the photo on the front of a man with scared eyes but a firm mouth. 

“Jimmy O’Donnell?” she asked. 

“Jimmy O’Donnell works for Comcast,” Bobby explained. “This asshole’s never seen the inside of a jail cell.” 

“Okay?” Amanda asked. “Should we pay him a visit?” 

“Wait a minute,” Bobby said, impatient. “These guys get no-show jobs, right? So when they rob a bank we go to the foreman and he says ‘oh yeah, so-and-so was here that day,’ and he shows us some fake time card. But Comcast is a public company. They can’t do that kind of shit there. So, when do you don’t show up to work, it’s a recorded sick day. Jimmy O’Donnell’s got some real interesting sick days.” 

He passed Amanda a list of recorded days, with four highlighted, and another list, this of bank robberies in and around Charlestown. For her convenience (because Bobby is a kiss ass), all four bank robbery entries are accompanied with surveillance photos of the same silhouette. 

“Bank Boston, Strong Armored, Arlington Brinks, and Kenmore Sovereign.” She stared at the photos, daring it to be a fluke. “Jesus Christ.” 

“It’s just Bobby Brown, baby,” Bobby crows, satisfied that she’s pleased. She rolls her eyes and hands him the files back, pulling out her notebook. She needed to strategize. 

***

It had been months since Johnny attended an NA meeting. He didn’t usually feel the need to come in and share, not after the first few months. He prided himself on being strong enough to kick his habit without relying entirely on the support of people he didn’t really know. 

He could hear his mother’s voice telling him that was a narrow-minded way of looking at things, but it was hard to kick that idea once it had taken hold. 

But the stress of Dutch and Daniel and the fuckin’ FBI had brought him back here, hoping that listening to everyone else talk about their struggles would take his mind off of his own. He couldn’t afford to be tempted right now – not by Daniel, not by drugs. 

An older man was speaking now, his face leathered and worn like he’d seen great tragedy in his lifetime. Johnny found himself staring at him, trying to decide if he saw himself in the man or not. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to find. 

“That’s Janice, she’s my wife,” he says, pointing at a woman in the front row who puts her hands over her heart at the recognition. “She’s right there. Anyway, I was dying. But I was hardheaded and I didn’t think it could change. Like the guy at the bar - he sees a priest pull up a chair. The guy says to the priest, ‘I hate to do this to you but you’re wasting your time. I know for a fact there is no God.’ Priest says, ‘How is that?’ He says, ‘Because I was an explorer at the North Pole. I got lost in a storm once, I was blinded and freezing to death and I prayed, if there is a God, save my life, but God didn’t come.’ The priest looks at him confused and says, ‘but you’re alive...God saved you.’ Guy says, ‘God? God never showed up. Some Eskimo came along and took me back to his camp.’”

Johnny saw where the story was going right before the man said it. That was always how it went with stories like this. 

“That’s what happened. I met Janice. She’s my Eskimo.”

He didn’t want to feel moved by the sentiments, by the way the old man was looking down at Janice, who offered him her hand when he stepped down off the podium, the way they held each other, their backs to him, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. 

That was what he wanted. 

Someone to save him.

***

He didn’t remember making the decision to go to Daniel’s apartment; he hardly remembered walking over there. Still, he found himself standing on the stoop, looking up at the windows, as if he could see him through the curtains. It was still daylight outside, the sun just starting its journey to night, and he wondered, for the first time, if Daniel was still at work. 

And then he opened the door and almost walked right into him. 

“Johnny!” he said, and Johnny had a horrible feeling that Daniel was going to be creeped out, finding him on his doorstep without knocking, but his eyes were bright, his smile genuine. 

“I just,” he waffles over being nonchalant and being honest. “I just wanted to come by and see you, maybe do something.” 

“Oh,” Daniel said, and he blushes, actually _blushes_ , and Johnny watched it happen, trying not to smile at the inadvertent encouragement. “Were we supposed to…?”

“No, no,” Johnny replied. “It’s just a spur of the moment thing.” 

Daniel’s happiness faded to disappointment. “I was just on my way out, actually.” 

“I can come with you,” Johnny added hastily, realizing how desperate he sounded. But he couldn’t shake the story from his mind. _She’s my Eskimo._ “I mean, I don’t know where you’re going, but I can give you a ride. It’s a nice day, and I don’t have anything else to do.” 

He threw in the last comment to sound less desperate, less clingy, but Daniel smiled at him like he knew it was a lie. 

“Okay,” Daniel said. “I’d like a ride.” 

Johnny realized, as Daniel was climbing into the truck beside him, that Daniel thought he worked in construction. He did, technically, but it was more of an occasional job than it was a full-time one. His truck was, as a result, far cleaner than a construction work truck should be. 

Daniel looked around, at the seats and floors, surprised. Johnny saw the surprise written on his face and tried to stamp out the nerves in his gut. 

“This does not look like a truck that’s been on the job recently,” Daniel remarked, buckling himself in. 

_Shit._

“I keep it clean for resale,” Johnny answered. 

“My car is jealous,” Daniel replied, and it’s mostly playful, but Johnny doesn’t feel soothed. 

“Ahh, yes, I figured I’d get the Prius lecture soon enough,” he answered with a laugh. Daniel stares at his profile as he starts the car. 

“How did you know I drive a Prius?” 

_Shit shit shit._

Johnny let his eyes find the rear-view mirror, under the guise of looking for oncoming traffic. “Uh, isn’t that yours there?” he pointed to the grey Prius behind them. “I figured it was yours. You’re the only person in all of Charlestown who would drive one.” 

“Shut up,” Daniel shoved his shoulder lightly, laughing. “I thought you were stalking me or something.” 

“So, uh, where are we going?” Johnny asked, hoping the subject change would stick this time. 

“Mass General Hospital,” Daniel said, settling into his seat, the previous conversation already forgotten or ignored. 

***

Maybe it was a mistake to bring Johnny here, Daniel thought. But he didn’t like being in hospitals, and seeing Johnny standing on his porch had felt like someone was looking out for him, someone was telling him that Johnny could give him the strength he needed to do this. 

He led Johnny through the halls, his hand in his. Was it his hand or Johnny’s that felt clammy? It had to be his own. He looked back at Johnny and caught his gaze, blue and shining brightly in the fluorescent light. It was maddening, how handsome he was under the most unflattering lighting. 

He smiled at him, but something in it must have been missing, because Johnny squeezed his hand comfortingly. 

“You seem worried about something,” he said, and Daniel slowed his pace, letting Johnny fall into step beside him. 

“I don’t like hospitals,” Daniel answered. “My father died in one.”

Johnny’s step faltered, like he wanted to stop to address the statement, but Daniel pushed forward. The sooner he got over the initial discomfort of the visit, the better it would be. 

“What happened?” Johnny asked. 

He didn’t apologize like everyone else did; Daniel was grateful. He hated when people apologized for his father’s death. What are you apologizing for? You didn’t have anything to do with it. An apology was always the way people said they were uncomfortable with knowing that information without outwardly saying it. It was semantically null. 

But Johnny was asking gentle questions. 

“I was young,” Daniel said, trying to decide how much to tell. “He was sick, he had cancer.” 

Johnny didn’t answer, didn’t placate, but pulled Daniel’s hand up to his mouth and kissed it, lightly on the knuckles. 

They stopped outside of a corner room, a cop standing guard outside.

“It won’t take long, I promise,” he said to Johnny, who looked pale. Maybe he didn’t like hospitals either. 

“No, don’t worry about it,” he said valiantly, but his eyes were still shifty. “I’ll wait for you out here.” 

“It’s fine, you should meet him,” Daniel said encouragingly, tugging on his hand. He could feel the cop’s eyes on him. Johnny didn’t answer, but didn’t pull his hand out of Daniel’s. He considered that a yes. 

Anoush was sitting up in bed, propped up by a bunch of pillows. The bandage around his eye looked fresh, lily white and tautly taped. Daniel released Johnny’s hand and rushed over to give him a hug. 

“I wish you’d let me bring you something, Anoush,” he said. “It doesn’t feel right not bringing you anything.” 

“Everyone brings too much shit,” Anoush said with a laugh. “What am I supposed to do with twelve flower arrangements and teddy bears?” 

“What did the doctor say?” Daniel’s eyes found Johnny’s across the room. He hadn’t said anything yet, but the fact that he was there at all was…surprising in a way Daniel hadn't thought of until now. Daniel suspected that Johnny would have lost interest in him by now – that weird bank teller who seemed to be completely out of his depth in Charlestown. 

But here he was. 

“They’re hopeful that I might regain fifty percent of sight in my right eye,” Anoush said with a shrug. “I just want to get back to work.” 

“You do?” Daniel asked. “After all that?” 

“The beauty of not remembering what happened,” Anoush said with a laugh. 

“I’m just going to give you guys a minute,” Johnny finally spoke up from the doorway. “I’ll just be right outside,” he said to Daniel, who gave him a nod. 

“We won’t be long,” Anoush called after him. “But we will definitely talk about you.” 

***

“You’re sure this doesn’t bother you?” Daniel asked Johnny at dinner later in the evening, sipping from his glass of wine. “Because I don’t have to –”

Johnny waved him off. “No, no, Princess, have your wine.” He sipped his glass of water. “I haven’t completely given up alcohol, just most of it. I’m not, like, drooling for it over here.” 

“You don’t like talking about it,” Daniel observed shrewdly. 

“Not really,” Johnny shifted in his seat, trying to find a nonchalant way to sit in the damn chair. 

“You can say that your life didn’t go well with alcohol,” Daniel said gently. “That one fact alone isn’t going to tell me everything about you.” 

Johnny took his hand across the table and let his thumb trace over Daniel’s knuckles. “I don’t mind telling you that my life didn’t go well with oxy and cocaine, but…” he pressed his thumb into Daniel’s soft palm. “I also wouldn’t mind talking about something else.” 

“Okay,” Daniel acquiesced, and Johnny was surprised and pleased to see he didn’t look squeamish at the mention of drugs, “what about your family?” 

Johnny went still. He tried not to be obviously tilted off course, but Daniel and his damn observant eyes caught it all the same. 

“Come on,” he said softly, so Johnny knew he was only teasing. “You can’t shut me down at family too.” 

“What are you talking about?” Johnny asked stiffly. “I’m an open book.” 

Daniel raised his eyebrows at him.

“My mom left when I was six,” Johnny said finally. “My dad lives in…the suburbs.” 

His father was in prison for life and then some, but Daniel didn’t need to know that. 

“That’s awful,” Daniel said after a moment. “Why did she leave?” 

“She just left.” 

“Johnny,” Daniel said, and his voice was finally serious. “I’m just trying to learn things about you that are worth more than what you do at Sky Makers. If you don’t want me to know any of those things, then I don’t really know what we’re doing here.” 

Johnny stared at him. It was a bad idea, he knew, telling Daniel anything about himself that could eventually be used against him. Because that’s what would happen, eventually. Daniel would find out what Johnny had done, and all of these moments, these romantic interludes by candlelight and velvet curtains would be used against him. He wasn’t sure he could bear it. 

But Daniel was staring at him in askance, his eyes asking for just something, a little something that would help him understand Johnny. 

It was the least he could do.

He took a deep breath. “I just turned six. This noise woke me up in the morning. I thought it was an animal, maybe. I’d never heard what a man sounded like just, you know, crying.” Daniel’s hand in his own tightened. “When I saw my father in the kitchen, all I remember is the ashtray. Looked like he’d been through a hundred cigarettes. Ash like a little mountain. He had stopped crying and he was sitting there watching TV on our little black and white with no sound. I think he just didn’t know what else to do. He saw me standing in the doorway and he just goes, ‘your mother left. She’s not comin’ back.’”

Johnny took a sip of his water, hoping the words would stop. But it was like he’d broken a dam, and they kept coming. “We lost our dog the year before. I thought ‘lost’ was a place people went. I wanted to make these posters so if she was lost, she could call us like they did when someone found our dog.”

He had been looking at the table during his story. But he wanted to see Daniel’s face. He wanted to know. His voice shifted to something dry, sardonic. “To this day my father will tell you he helped me make those posters. But he didn’t. He sat there and drank a case of beer and I went around by myself on school street asking people if they had seen my mother. I always assumed she went off and started another family somewhere and knowing my father – I don’t blame her.” 

Daniel, across the table, didn’t say anything. He was staring at Johnny like he’d just understood, suddenly, so many things that had no explanation before. He looked like the world was resting on his shoulders. 

Johnny felt both gratified and guilty. 

“Glad I told that story... Now you’re never gonna call me,” Johnny said, hoping the joke would lighten Daniel up a bit. “Did I just say, ‘now you’re never gonna call me?’ How did I turn into Sex and the City all of a sudden?” 

Daniel laughed finally, but his eyes were still bright, like they were full of tears. Johnny couldn’t be sure, and he didn’t want to push it. 

“I’ll definitely call you,” Daniel said assuredly. “Never worry about that.” 

Johnny felt suddenly lighter than he’d felt in a long time. “That’s good,” he said when he realized that he needed to reply. 

“Besides, I need someone to walk me home at night,” Daniel said. 

Johnny shrugged. “I mean, unless you’re a walking armored car, you should be safe. Charlestown doesn’t have a lot of street crime.” 

“Yeah, but I’m clearly not from here,” Daniel replied, and he said it so firmly that Johnny knew swiftly that he was speaking from experience. 

“What happened?” 

“Oh, nothing,” Daniel said with a wave of his hand. “Some assholes are always yelling at me when I walk by. Throwing bottles and stuff. I just have to come to terms with the fact that I’m not cool enough to walk through the projects.” 

Something must have shown on Johnny’s face, because the smile slid off of Daniel’s immediately. 

“It’s not a big deal –”

Johnny could hear the gravel in his own voice, the danger of imminent repercussions. “They threw bottles at you?” 

“They hardly ever make it to me,” Daniel joked, but Johnny’s face didn’t change. “It’s really not a big deal, I’m fine. It just scared me.” 

“Hardly ever?” 

“Johnny –”

“Daniel.” 

With a grimace, Daniel pulled his hand out of Johnny’s and pulled down his collar, where a scratch was healing near his shoulder, the line angry and red and definitely recent. 

“It’s _fine_ –”

“It isn’t fine,” Johnny snapped, and Daniel fell silent. “Hey, I’m going to walk you home. You ever need me to walk you anywhere, I want you to call me. Those dicks won’t throw shit at you if I’m with you.” 

He could hear the Boston accent coming out more in his anger, and Daniel looked surprised at the shift. 

“Do you remember what they look like?” Johnny asked. 

***

After walking Daniel home, asking him repeatedly to point out the stoops where people had thrown bottles at him, Johnny got into his truck and drove over to Dutch’s apartment. He had been thinking about it since dinner – Dutch was the only person he could go to for something like this. He just had to be smart about it. 

Dutch was watching a hockey game on TV, three beers deep at least, a line of coke abandoned on a hand mirror on the table in front of him when Johnny walked in. He looked up at his friend, eyes wide and alert. 

“Johnny boy,” he said as a greeting. 

“I need your help,” Johnny said. “I can’t tell you why, you can never ask me about it later, and we’re gonna hurt some people.” 

Dutch stared up at him for a moment that seemed to go on forever. Johnny thought he was going to say no. 

“Whose car are we gonna take?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny takes revenge, the FBI start closing in, Daniel starts asking harder questions.

Johnny reminded himself, as he sat in the truck with Dutch on the other side, that they are both lucky and unlucky that Charlestown is so small. It wasn’t hard to take Daniel’s very vague description (probably Hispanic, one larger and one smaller, red hat) and the location and connect to exactly who they were looking for, no doubt. 

“Top floor,” Dutch said quietly beside him. “Apartment B.” 

Johnny wanted to say that he was having second thoughts about this. He wanted to say that spending time with Daniel had softened his edge, that the idea of enacting violence against these two shitheads was getting harder with time. But it wasn’t. He remembered the scratch on Daniel’s skin, red and angry and fresh, and the fury washed over him anew. 

No, it wasn’t getting harder. Right now, it felt even easier than it did before. 

“Let’s go,” he said, fastening his mask over his face and checking that Dutch was doing the same. He was holding a sledgehammer in one hand, a hockey stick in the other. A part of him whispered that he didn’t need to use them. He could use his fists. It would feel better. 

Dutch was carrying a metal pipe. 

They got to the top floor in silence; they know the drill well enough that they don’t have to speak. Dutch covered the peephole with the end of the pipe and knocked with his other hand. Johnny, beside him, tightened his hold on the sledgehammer, holding it out and ready. 

“Who is it?” 

“Pizza,” Dutch called out, trying and not entirely succeeding in removing the heavy Boston accent from his voice. 

The door clicked and Johnny swung the sledgehammer, sending the door flying toward the poor bastard opening it. He stumbled backward, hand over his face where the door hit him, and just like that, Johnny and Dutch were inside. 

Johnny abandoned the hockey stick and sledgehammer and swung his fist into the other man’s face, knocking him out of the couch and onto the ground. He kept swinging, letting the anger drive every swing, his teeth bared, his blood roaring. 

Dutch, behind him, kept wailing on the man at the door, swinging the pipe again and again. Johnny can just barely hear it above the sound of his labored breathing, the screams of the man beneath him. It should have been a fairer fight. Both of these men were bigger than they were, but surprise and rage gave them an advantage. 

He could feel his knuckles bleeding, the skin splitting as he pummeled, the blood splattering against the mask. It would be so easy to beat the man to death. 

It was Daniel’s voice that stopped him, sudden and unexpected in his mind. _“If you can’t be honest with me, I don’t know what I’m doing here.”_

He stumbled back, off and away from the man cowering on the floor, breathing heavily. Would he ever be able to be honest with Daniel about this? Did he want to have the opportunity to make that difficult decision? 

Dutch, beside him, took his cue and stopped, stepping away from his own opponent. 

“Let’s go,” Johnny muttered, turning away from the two men and crossing back to the door. 

Dutch didn’t follow. Instead, he pulled a packet of cocaine out of his pocket and dumped it on the man he’d been beating. The white powder exploded everywhere, embedding itself into the furniture, onto the table, into the man’s open, bleeding wounds.

“Come on,” Johnny said again, close to the door now. The high of the fight was gone, and all he felt was sickened. He wanted to be anywhere but here. 

Dutch turned to the guy on the floor, the one Johnny had beaten. “What did you do?” 

“Let’s go.” 

The man on the floor didn’t say anything, but winced and cowered when Dutch walked over, still holding the metal pipe, now dripping blood freely onto the floor. 

“You see that guy over there?” Dutch pointed to Johnny, who felt his legs go numb. “That’s my fucking brother over there. I would die for that mother fucker. You hurt him?” 

“No!” the man finally answered, his voice broken and frantic. “No, no I swear, I ain’t do nothin’!”

In a flash, Dutch pulled a gun out of the waistband of his pants and pointed it at him. “Yes, you did.” 

“Chill,” the guy on the floor said, but Johnny knew that was the wrong thing to say. 

“Don’t fucking tell me to chill,” Dutch hissed. “What did you to do him?” 

The man didn’t answer, clearly thinking that whatever he said would only incense Dutch more. Johnny didn’t really blame him. He wouldn’t know what to do either. 

And then Dutch raised the gun to the guy’s head, and he curled in on himself more. 

“Easy,” Johnny muttered. 

“What did you do?” 

“Nothing!” 

The gunshot almost knocked Johnny back a step. The man on the floor screamed, holding his leg, the blood spurting from between his fingers. Johnny watched in horror as the blood landed on the carpet and kept spreading. Before Johnny could recollect himself, Dutch pointed the gun at the other leg and fired twice more. 

“You’re fucked up now,” Dutch said, and Johnny watched as his lifted the gun to the man’s head. 

_“Don’t!”_ he shouted, and Dutch looked back at him, blood all over his mask, and Johnny can tell from the look in his eyes that he’s grinning beneath it. “Let’s go.” But Dutch didn’t move; Johnny yanked the gun out of his hand, ignoring how hot the barrel was on his palm, and shoved him toward the door. 

Dutch pushed past him back to the man on the floor and pulled off his mask. Johnny, at the door, felt the blood drain from his body. They were _fucked._ They were _absolutely_ fucked. 

“You see my face?” Dutch said to the man on the floor, holding his legs and screaming. “Good. Go to the cops. ‘Cause I seen yours too.” 

***

Johnny didn’t sleep that night. He didn’t even go to bed. He knew what he would find there. Nightmares, borne out of anxiety and dread, of getting arrested, locking eyes with Daniel as the handcuffs clink around him. The pain, the betrayal in those amber eyes. 

He leaned forward in his chair, his hands in his hair. He wanted to tighten them and pull. The pain would ground him. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to breathe. It would be easier to get through the night if he tried to stay calm. Letting himself free in a wave of panic and self-loathing was a quick way to a relapse. 

He wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that.

He thought about Dutch, about his childhood best friend who had always gone the extra mile to protect him, to bring him into his family. It was impossible for Johnny to imagine his life without him. But, his common sense whispered to him, if he didn’t, he and Dutch would go down together, forfeiting their life for what? For Charlestown? For their family? 

Somehow it just wasn’t as valuable to him anymore. 

“I can’t have you out there killin’ people,” he’d said to Dutch halfway through their silent ride home. 

Dutch had shrugged one shoulder. “Hey, you brought _me._ ” 

_Fuck._

***

Daniel was kneeling in warm soil when Johnny showed up the next day, bags deep under his eyes, the set of his shoulders tired. He wanted to ask what was wrong, but he had a feeling Johnny would brush off the question with another one, and the subject would be deftly changed. 

“Five years since these things popped up and you’re the only one I’ve ever seen use it,” he remarked, his voice rough and tired. Daniel sat back on his haunches, wiping the dirt from his hands. There were plenty of plots around him in the little community garden, all used. 

“You think that reflects more on me or on you?” he asks lightly, picking up the little clippers and deftly snipping off a little piece of the bonsai tree. Johnny watched him do it, his gaze fond but somehow still inscrutable. 

“Oh me, definitely.” 

Again, Daniel wanted to ask him what he meant. Sometimes the self-deprecating comments sounded less like a joke and more like a warning, but no amount of gentle prodding would ever succeed in getting Johnny to open up about them. 

He still remembered sitting across from Johnny at the restaurant while he talked about his mother, the fresh pain that flitted over his face in the candlelight. Pain from so many years ago shouldn’t feel so fresh. If he talked about things more, he might be able to heal. 

But he couldn’t say that, so instead he said, “I’ve started having dreams about you.” 

“Really?” Johnny asked, and Daniel can hear the almost smug smile he’s probably wearing. 

“I dreamed you worked at the bank,” Daniel said without looking up. “And then you were six years old. But you’re never…you. You’re always just a vapor, and it made me realize. I know you really well, but I don’t know you at all. Are you real?” 

“I hope so,” Johnny said, and Daniel caught his gaze this time, openly sad and tender. 

“All I have is a cell number,” Daniel turned more completely toward him, still on his knees in the dirt. “I don’t have an address, no house I can drive by and wonder if you’re home.”

“You want references or something?” Johnny asked, and Daniel can hear the nervous laugh there, like he’s worried that Daniel is somehow judging him. 

“No,” Daniel said firmly, firmly enough that Johnny looked at him again. “I want to know you, in stupid ways. I want to go through your medicine cabinet, flip through your closet.” He paused, searching Johnny’s eyes for a clue. “I mean, am I crazy? Are you married?” 

A real laugh this time. “No, I’m not married.” 

Daniel didn’t laugh. “Am I making a mistake?” he asked, and there was the sadness again, real and raw and asking to be soothed. “I’ll keep making it, Johnny, I just want to know.” 

“No,” he said, and Daniel thought for a second he would say more, but he just bit his lip and waited for Daniel to say something else.

He searched Johnny’s countenance for a clue, though he didn’t really know what to look for. What did Johnny look like when he lied? He didn’t really know. 

“Okay,” Daniel said finally. “You promised.”

“It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Johnny said, looking wistfully into the distance, “no past, no history. Meet for the first time every day. No disappointments.” 

Okay, Daniel thought. He could play this game. He extended his hand to him. “Daniel.” 

“Johnny,” he played along, a smile at the corner of his mouth. They shook, and Johnny held his hand for longer than necessary, his fingers tracing the bottom of his palm. “Nope, no chemistry.” 

Daniel shoved him, and Johnny’s laughter chased away his worries.

***

Bar-be-cue days with Dutch and the gang were always fun in theory, and then Johnny would get there and everyone was halfway to drunk already and he would be reminded, in brutal fashion, why he always left early. But still, he always went, and he could consolidate his reason in one three foot by three foot square, with blue netting and little dinosaurs along the side. 

Robby was sitting in the playpen, mostly unamused with the goings on around him. Johnny wondered if he was really uninterested in everyone else, or if he was just picking up on the fact that everyone seemed to treat him the same way. He hoped the toddler wasn’t already internalizing the neglect that personified the parent-offspring relationships of Charlestown, but he knew he didn’t have a lot of room to talk. 

Dutch held out a beer to him but Johnny shook his head, rummaging in the cooler for a can of soda instead. He cracked it and sipped, casting his gaze out to Shannon, who was whispering something to her brother. 

“Nice of you to show up,” she tossed out to him when she caught him looking. 

“I always show up,” he protested weakly, leaning back in the little lawn chair he’d found to sit in. “Not my fault you never remember.” 

She gave him the finger and turned away. 

With her back to him, Johnny leaned over to the playpen and called out to Robby. The boy looked healthy enough, and seemed to be an average size for his age. He couldn’t really complain, though he did have serious doubts that Shannon was the reason Robby looked okay. He chalked that up to Shannon’s mom. 

“What you got there, kiddo?” he asked, and Robby looked blankly down at his hand, holding a small dinosaur toy, before looking back up. 

“Dino!” he said, his fat little fist tight around it, the word elongated the way toddlers did when they were trying to connect the sounds together. 

“Wow, he’s ferocious,” Johnny replied, smiling. Robby grinned back at him, showing off his little teeth. Last time Johnny has seen him, he didn’t have any of those. 

He searched the toddler’s face for anything familiar. He told Shannon that he wasn’t Robby’s father, and while she liked to try to hold Robby over him, she seemed to agree that it wasn’t likely. But there was always a nagging doubt in the back of his mind that he would be wrong and Robby would grow up without a dad when his real one had been there all along. 

So habitually he studied the child’s face, looking for something that would tell him for sure that Johnny was his father. Perhaps their eyes would be the same color, or his hair would fall the same way. Maybe they would have the same tight mouth, same set of his brow. 

If he looked carefully, he thought he could see resemblance in his brow, the way the little kid’s face went serious when he was thinking about something, but he didn’t want to dwell on it too long. 

“Oi,” the kid from down the road hopped over the fence and came to Johnny’s side. “I did what you asked.” 

“And?” 

Dutch sidled up beside him. 

“Windows black as fuck, can’t see shit inside. Antenna’s base a quarter inch thick.” 

Johnny passed the kid some twenties and shooed him off, pointing him down the side of the house so he could come out on the next street, away from the unmarked van watching them from the end of the block. 

“Fucking feebies,” Dutch muttered. “It’s that goddamn bank teller.” 

“What could he have possibly said? There were four of us?” Johnny could barely hear his voice over the wind in his ears. “He didn’t say shit.” 

“Sure, you think you know better,” Dutch muttered. 

“We gotta put a stop on our other job,” Johnny said, pushing past the other comment without acknowledgment. 

“What? Why?” 

“The fucking Feds are down the block, Dutch, and it’s not even prepped yet. We’re good for now, just lie low. We shouldn’t be seen together much for a while, I think.” 

Dutch gave him a look that said even if his orders were followed, it wouldn’t be without scrutiny. A pit opened in Johnny’s stomach. 

***

Amanda surveyed the room. Full of agents she more-or-less trusted, but that was the nature of the beast, wasn’t it? Still, she was too excited to care if some of these little shits didn’t deserve to hold the badge, much less be in the room. 

She clicked the little remote and a picture popped up on the screen. “Jimmy O’Donnell. System tech at Comcast.” 

The competent agents leaned forward to find what she mentioned in their briefing packets. The others, the assholes who had seen _The Departed_ one too many times, just listened, their eyes barely focused. She clicked again. 

“Nicholas, or Nicky Dutch,” she said. “Killed a drug dealer over a girl with when he was nineteen. Served seven for manslaughter. Father killed in prison. Mother died of HIV. Left him and the sister this three-banger. He’s your prototype. Townie; lifer, killer, shithead. These guys plan and execute with sophistication and discipline - and you know that ain’t Dutch. We think the architect is his best friend – Johnny Lawrence.” 

She clicks the remote again and the screen changes to a photo of a handsome blond man, leaning down to talk to a toddler in a playpen. 

Bobby cleared his throat to take over. This is his specialty, after all: Charlestown history. 

“Lawrence senior got life for the Dunbar job where Steven Burke executed both guards. Young Lawrence did eight months easy for going over the counter of a BayBank with a nail gun after he washed out from pro-hockey,” he said, clicking through photos of Johnny Lawrence’s father, and a much younger version of himself, wearing a hockey jersey.

“Pro-hockey?” someone in the crowd asks. Amanda almost rolled her eyes. Of course, the least interesting part of the briefing is the part they focus on. 

“He was hot shit for a minute, got drafted and then got booted for, shocker, fighting people and doing drugs,” Bobby finished. The room erupted in sardonic exclamations. _“No, not a Boston kid,”_ one guy said with a grin. _“A townie?”_ someone else said in faux-surprise.

“The last one is Tommy Duncan. Never met a car he didn’t boost. Tommy’s one of those guys that can start your car for you while you’re still looking for your keys.” 

The room erupts in more sarcastic comments, but Amanda starts speaking again before it can get entirely out of hand. 

“We’re a long way from a grand jury on this,” she said, just loud enough that the room went silent. “But if those aren’t our guys…” she pauses, looking out at the men in the room who are suddenly disinterested in the briefing again, “then I’ll fuck Bobby.” 

The table explodes in laughter, and Bobby, beside her, looks scandalized. “Is that supposed to be a win for me?” he asked. 

Amanda rolled her eyes and turned away.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny has a wake up call. The next job is set up - and so are they.

Johnny learned, early on with Daniel, that he was full of contrasts. He loved to preach about being peaceful and non-violent, but he had an explosive temper; he loved dressing well, but he loved seeing Johnny in his work clothes; he was intelligent in unknown ways, but he admitted when he didn’t know something with apparently no compunction about whether or not that impacted how other people saw him. 

And then this afternoon, sitting outside in the bright, warm sun, Johnny also learned that Daniel liked eating pineapple on pizza. 

“It’s _good_ ,” Daniel had protested when Johnny initially laughed at him. “Anyone who doesn’t like pineapple on pizza hasn’t tried it or is trying to be trendy.” 

“Pineapple is disgusting on anything,” Johnny said unequivocally, which he didn’t really believe, but Daniel’s shocked and horrified face was worth the white lie. “Plain pizza or die.” 

“Then perish,” Daniel said haughtily, taking a bite of his cursed slice, giving Johnny a wink as he did. 

Minutes later, when their banter had devolved into longer, rambling conversations that Johnny truly relished, where they talked about nothing and everything, subjects shifting in their silences without explanation, Daniel looked out across the street to the gates of the park and sighed. 

“My father died on a day like this,” he said, the heavy sadness in his voice that Johnny felt so keenly it felt like it was reaching across the table and tightening its fist around his heart. Daniel turned his eyes, jeweled like topaz, on Johnny. “So every time I see beautiful, sunny weather like this, I think of him. On sunny days, I think of someone dying. That’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“I’m sure he’s glad you’re thinking of him.” Johnny didn’t really know what else to say. He was struck, again, by Daniel’s almost soft beauty, illuminated by the sunlight, the lines around his eyes sad and pensive. 

Daniel looks at him, a Renaissance painting turning its eyes on its admirer, and Johnny forces himself to speak again. 

“I’m having a good time,” he said lamely, gesturing at everything. “This is still a good day.” 

Perhaps he was trying to help Daniel make a better memory on a sunny day, he didn’t really know. Daniel smiled at him and stood up, setting his napkin by his plate of pizza. 

“Good, then you’ll miss me while I’m gone,” he said, and meandered on inside, leaving Johnny to look after him fondly. Once he was out of sight, he looked up at the sky, trying to find something other than melancholy in it now that Daniel said that’s what it communicated to him. 

Something circular pressed into the back of his neck. _“Money, bitch.”_

He went painfully rigid, fight or flight instincts trying to decide which side of the coin to fall on, and then realized that the rest of the restaurant was still eating calmly, ignoring whatever was going on here. 

“I fucking froze you,” Dutch’s voice was recognizable now, and he appeared at Johnny’s side, putting a fat pen in his pocket. Immediately, Johnny’s eyes went to the door that Daniel had disappeared through. _Don’t come out now,_ he wished silently. 

“What are you doing here?” Dutch asked, plopping down in Daniel’s seat, his Boston Bruins jacket and ragged hat completely out of place. Johnny cast his mind around for an excuse. This is not the kind of place he’d come to without prompting. Daniel was the one who chose it, saying that he walked past it all the time and never actually stopped to eat. 

“What?” he finally said when Dutch raised his eyebrows at him. 

“The fuck is this?” Dutch said. “Who are you here with?” He looked down at the plate, where the pineapple pizza is sitting. Johnny watched with horror as he scooped it up and took a bite. 

“No one,” he said hurriedly, his eyes going to the door again. _Shit, shit,_ Daniel would be back any second. 

“No one?” Dutch asked with a laugh in his voice. He reached for Daniel’s glass of lemonade and took a sip. “What is this?” 

Suddenly, like he’d been burned, Johnny stood up, taking out his wallet. It would be easier to explain to Daniel later why he left him at the restaurant. It would be far easier to do that than it would to explain Dutch; Dutch, who would recognize Daniel instantly; Dutch who could blow his cover at any moment. 

“Let’s get out of here,” he said dismissively, hoping that Dutch would follow him if only because he sounded bored.

“Naw, I’m cool,” Dutch said nonchalantly. “Let me get a beer.” 

Shit – and to make things even worse, Johnny looked up just in time to catch Daniel’s gaze on his way back to the table. He thought rapidly about what he could possibly do to whisk Daniel away, to distract Dutch, but even while he was thinking, Daniel spotted Dutch and Dutch Daniel. 

“Hi,” Daniel said politely, holding out his hand for Dutch to shake. Dutch jumped up from his seat, taking the offered hand and shaking. “I’m Daniel.” 

“Dutch.” 

“Dutch?” Daniel asked. 

“Yep, just Dutch,” he said firmly. Daniel nodded, turning to Johnny, his eyebrows just high enough that Johnny recognized the call for help. “I’m friends with this loser over here. You know, best friends.” 

Daniel reclaimed his seat and Dutch pulled up another one from an empty table, hardly taking his eyes off of Daniel. Johnny stared at the table, his mind going a million miles a minute. How could he salvage this? How was he going to explain it later? 

“I saw his truck parked around the corner,” Dutch was saying. He finally turned his eyes to Johnny. “I told you it stands out.” 

The realization comes so quickly it almost knocked Johnny out of his seat. Dutch had been _following_ him. 

“So, you two have been friends a long time?” Daniel was looking at Johnny for the answer, but Dutch slipped in before he could speak. 

“Our whole lives,” he said, feigning wistfulness. “But he never breathed a word about you, y’know. All the secrets with this guy!” He looked over to Johnny again, the flatness in his eyes betraying the anger there. “So what do you do for a living, Daniel?” 

“I work at a bank,” Daniel said, his eyes finding Johnny’s for just a moment. Trust Dutch to bring up the one subject that no one at the fucking table would want to talk about. 

“Oh yeah? Which one?” 

“Kenmore Square.” 

Dutch widens his eyes – to Johnny it looks almost comical, but Daniel just accepts it weakly, like he knew it was coming. “Wasn’t that the one –?”

“Yeah, we got robbed.” 

Thankfully, Dutch lets the matter go there. “So where did you two meet?” he asks, and once again, Johnny is forcibly left out of the conversation. 

“At the laundromat,” Daniel says, and he smiles at Johnny now, enough that Johnny almost forgets about the hopelessness of the situation. 

“Oh, yeah? Finding love in the bleach,” Dutch jokes, but Johnny hears the emphasis on bleach, the chemical they use on all of their jobs. He’s staring at Johnny now, the façade of his kindness starting to slip. “Don’t you believe a word he says, Daniel.” 

“You mean he isn’t really an astronaut?” Daniel tries to joke, but Dutch didn’t seem to be listening. 

“Don’t get too attached to your life of leisure here. Johnny, you know, he’s a real workaholic,” he said, turning back to Daniel for a moment before fixing Johnny with a glare that chilled him to the bone. “Always taking his work home with him.” 

***

Johnny found Dutch in the basement of his house, lifting weights in the dim, yellow light. Placating Daniel had been easier than he expected – Daniel was ready to accept whatever Johnny had to say about Dutch (“He’s just one of those friends from childhood, you know, that you keep around because you’ve known them for so long. He’s weird, yeah, definitely weird.”). The conversation had easily drifted into a light teasing that Daniel orchestrated that Johnny wasn’t actually telling his friends about him at all, gentle and fun, no hidden agenda. 

It was so trusting that he felt even worse about it now, knowing that Daniel was lucky in his naivete, not having to be paranoid about who was in his life or why. Except he needed to be, didn’t he, as long as Johnny was there? 

“You got something to say, say it now,” Johnny said before Dutch could put down the curling bar. He was too on edge to dance around shit right now. 

“That’s supposed to be my line,” Dutch retorted, putting the bar on the rack and turning to face him. The sheen of sweat stood out on his face, the veins in his arms bulging. Johnny didn’t want to have to take him in a fight.

“That was a mistake, going over there,” Johnny says, trying to keep the upper hand. 

“You wanna talk about a mistake?” Dutch asked, his voice going shrill for a second. “You’re over at fucking Stefani’s pizza with the witness to our armed fuckin’ robbery!” 

“I know what I’m doing.” _Lie._

“If you fuck up in this life, there are consequences, Johnny. And you’re fucking up.” Dutch gave him a dismissive once over, reminding Johnny so much of Sid that for a moment anger tinted everything red. “Is it over?” 

“Don’t worry about me,” he said evasively, trying to get his feet back under him. 

“I am worried about you, motherfucker,” Dutch snapped. “You’re trying to get my ass thrown in prison and you’re slow-rolling our next job –”

“I’m not slow-rolling shit,” Johnny answered. 

“God, that must be a nice tight ass for you, Johnny,” Dutch continued uninterrupted, and Johnny takes a hasty step forward, forgetting his previous insistence on staying calm, “got you on a three-week bender when you don’t even do drugs. Don’t let it be some five-week delay ass and don’t let it be no get-your-friends-thrown-in-Walpole ass neither.” 

Johnny had to concentrate on breathing through his nose to keep his fist at his side. He wanted, more than he’d wanted anything in a long time, to drive his fist into Dutch’s mouth right now. It would be so gratifying, to knock that self-satisfied, paranoid look off of his face. 

“Things take time,” he said instead. “We got heat on us right now –”

“Yeah, we got heat on us right now so let’s start fucking all of the witnesses. I’m blowing the bank manager, didn’t I tell you?” 

“Fuck you,” Johnny hissed. “You want to be in charge? You’re welcome to try it.” 

“No one needs to know you’re fuckin’ him, alright, Johnny?” Dutch said, as if Johnny hadn’t spoken. “And no one needs to know you’re taking out hits on Puerto Ricans for him either.” He cleared his throat and wiped at his nose, and Johnny wondered, for the first time, if he was coked up. “Just get off your ass and get the next one set up.” 

“You want to go so bad?” Johnny asked. “Fine. We’ll go tomorrow.” 

***

Johnny doesn’t get an opportunity to knock on his door before Daniel spots him from the window. He looked out onto the street and spotted his head of blond hair, lingering on the doorstep like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to knock or not. For a moment, Daniel thought he would leave him be, let him decide if he wanted to knock or not. But there was something in the expression on his face, slightly distorted through the window, that troubled him. 

He opened the front door, and Johnny took a startled step back, to the edge of the porch. 

“What?” Daniel asked. Johnny blinked at him, as if he’d forgotten how to speak. Daniel worried, for the first time, if Johnny had relapsed somehow. 

“Nothing.” 

Daniel sighed, holding out his hand for Johnny to take, to let him pull him inside. Johnny didn’t take it. “What is it?” he asked. 

“It’s just –” Johnny heaved a great breath, his chest moving with the force of it, “Every time I see you I think I keep thinking I’ve exaggerated in my mind how – how beautiful you are, and you can’t really look that amazing in real life. And then I see you, and…you do.” 

Daniel looked down at himself, a pair of plaid sleep pants and a sleeveless shirt. He wanted to call him out on a placating line, that he was just trying to be complimentary, but there’s a reverence in his face that tells him Johnny’s telling the truth, and he isn’t sure how to take it. “That’s…a great line,” he said, but he could see in Johnny’s face that it wasn’t. “How many guys and girls are there in Charlestown with broken hearts who’ve heard that line?” 

Johnny shrugged. “None.” He took the steps up and let Daniel pull him inside. “They’re in the surrounding suburban areas.” 

Daniel chuckled, feeling far more secure that Johnny is starting to sound like himself. “I saw your picture today.” 

“You did?” he pauses in the walk down the hallway. “You sure it was me?” 

These little moments, these evasive questions, always lingered in Daniel’s mind long after Johnny left. He wasn’t sure what to make of them. Were they just self-deprecating? Or was there something deeper there that he hadn’t been able to pinpoint yet? As far as questions go, they were harmless, but something told him they were important. 

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Daniel said reassuringly. “As far as hockey pictures go, that is. The hair was pretty bad.” 

“Oh, that picture,” Johnny said, and his voice sounds relieved, and Daniel almost asked him, for the second time that night, what he meant by that. But Johnny looks troubled, like there’s something else on his mind that he is trying to figure out how to say. 

So Daniel fills the silence. 

“I was volunteering at the Boys and Girl’s Club, and it was under a banner called ‘Local Heroes,’” he said. “I gotta say, it was very intimidating. I saw that photo and I thought I was dating Tiger Woods or something.” 

Johnny huffs an unhappy laugh. “I wasn’t that good.” 

“I don’t think they draft bad players to the NHL, John,” he said blandly, and his humor is starting to run out, replaced by worry. Usually they would have gotten back to banter by now, but Johnny is still looking at him in the darkened living room both like he wants to cry and like he wants to hit him. 

“Yeah, I got drafted,” Johnny said, his eyes off of Daniel and on the floor beneath him. “But I didn’t do what I needed to do to make the team, and I wasn’t classy enough to accept it. So when I got a second chance, I fucked that up, too.” He looked up at Daniel again, who met his gaze unflinchingly, searching for something in his face. “When I see that picture, I just see a fuck up. Someone who fucked up everything good that ever came into his life.” 

Daniel bit his lip. He knew where this conversation was going. “You’re not –”

“I want to be your boyfriend.” 

He was not expecting that. “I – well, I don’t think I’ve had a boyfriend since…sixth grade or something –”

And then Johnny is kissing him, desperate and heated and Daniel grabbed the side of his face, pressing soothing fingers into his cheekbones, deep into his hair, down to his neck, pulling back when Johnny pushes too hard, calming him down when whatever he’s battling threatens to pull them both under. 

Except Johnny is intoxicating, intense in kissing the same way his gaze is, his hands rough and unforgiving but still somehow gentle when he pulls Daniel’s shirt over his head and tosses it onto the floor beneath them. Daniel kissed him softly, pulling back to take in his face, the way he stubbornly kept his eyes closed, his breath ragged and uneven. 

Daniel held him still, long enough that he forced Johnny into opening his eyes, and there’s a fear and sadness there that almost floored him. He kisses him again, the gentle press of his lips trying to chase it away, but when he pulls back, it’s still there, pleading silently with Daniel, but for what, he doesn’t know. 

“What’s happening?” Daniel asked, and Johnny balked at the question. 

“Don’t ask me today,” he said against the bare skin of Daniel’s shoulder. 

“What do you need?” Daniel asked instead. 

Johnny cupped one side of his face, looking so intently into his eyes that Daniel almost looked away, overwhelmed. But Johnny holds him still, searching for something in his gaze. “To hold onto you.” 

Daniel nodded, and pulled him in for another kiss, this one reassuring and gentle, even while their hands were leaving fingerprints behind on their skin. 

***

Johnny thought about the night before in the shower the next morning, while he systematically scrubbed every inch of his body, encouraging every inch of loose skin to come free. Couldn’t have any DNA at any crime scene. 

He thought he would regret sleeping with Daniel the day after – he thought the guilt would eat away at him until he was slowly driven insane, until he withdrew from him, leaving him without a goodbye. But he didn’t feel that way at all. 

Instead, he felt like this routine he was going through – the one he used to relish – was starting to wear thin. 

He didn’t want to have to leave Daniel early in the morning to do this. He wanted to stay in bed with him, under his blue sheets, pressing kisses to the tender skin he’d marked up the night before. He wanted to get out of bed, make coffee, and get right back in, watching the sunlight dance across Daniel’s face while he slept. 

He thought about what the others were doing right now – Dutch would be cleaning every inch of their weapons, even the ammunition they fed to the guns, to remove any evidence that could be traced to them. Tommy would be gathering all of the chemicals, while Jimmy was getting the car from Comcast. 

He didn’t like that they were doing this today – much less that they were doing this with a Comcast truck. It was messy – it was too fast. But Dutch needed to be appeased somehow. 

And leaving Daniel wasn’t an option. 

***

Amanda leaned back in the passenger seat of the car, a maroon Ford Taurus, probably the least clean surveillance car she’d ever sat in, and that was fucking saying something, and looked hard at the Comcast truck, parked perfectly on the street. 

“When did he get here?” 

A younger officer (Amanda was pretty sure everyone called him Stingray) leaned forward in his seat eagerly. “Six this morning, according to the GPS we installed on the truck. He wasn’t supposed to be here, according to Comcast, so you know, we called you guys.” 

“Good,” Amanda said, keeping her eyes on the truck. 

***

“Remember, we don’t need to get hurt, and we don’t need to hurt anyone else,” Johnny said, trying not to look at Dutch, who was glaring at him. “If we see a cruiser, we have the firepower. Take the tires and the radiator and keep going.”

He looked around at his crew, the masks in their hands. 

“The messenger will come around the back, open the doors, and load the coal bag – we hit him then – get the coal bags and whatever else we can out of the back. That’s when he’ll make his call.” 

“How long do we have after the call gets to dispatch?” Jimmy asked, his eyes on his stopwatch. 

“You can get rid of that,” Johnny said to the stopwatch. “It depends on how close a cruiser is. Got it?” 

Everyone nodded, except Dutch. 

“We ready?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another job, with added complications

Part of her training was patience – Amanda didn’t have much of it before this. But years of working the beat as a cop and then doing stakeouts for the FBI taught her that patience was just as important as a strong offense, as important as physical evidence. It was a make-or-break trait. 

“Let’s just pop the doors and get those fuckers,” Bobby said from the backseat, shifting anxiously. She didn’t bother looking back at him, her eyes trained on the Comcast car. 

“Shouldn’t we wait for them to commit a crime first, Bobby?” 

“Conspiracy –”

“A real fuckin’ crime, come on,” she snapped back. “Besides, it’s not like they’re going to go cruising in this Comcast van. If they don’t have a switch car here, then all they’re doing is surveillance.” 

A man in all black – Amanda recognized him as a junior agent, jogged up to the car, motioning for her to roll the window down. She rolled it down halfway, enough room for him to get a phone through. 

“We’re dark –”

“It’s encrypted,” he reassured her, giving her a momentary quirk of his lips before jogging off; from a distance Amanda could see his all black ensemble was meant to look like a running outfit. She made a mental note to tell the FBI to give their agents something other than black. 

“Yeah?” she said into the phone. 

“That Cherokee in the parking lot is boosted,” the voice on the other end said. “That’s their getaway.” 

“Fuck,” she muttered, snapping her fingers at Bobby. “Call tactical. Get them down here, quick.” She could feel the excitement filling her chest. She wiggled her fingers at Bobby, who was dialing. He didn’t have to ask her what she meant. He reached down to the floor and pulled out a bulletproof vest and passed it to her. 

***

“This is for our friends in law enforcement,” Dutch said, pulling a bullet out of his strap, secured around his torso. “.762 round. It’ll go through a car door, the vest, a ceramic chest plate, an engine, and two people.” 

“ _Jesus_ ,” Johnny muttered, hiding the word behind his hand. 

“That’ll give you a good boost to your sentence for that,” Jimmy said nervously, clicking and unclicking the safety of his gun. Johnny glared at him, his eyes on his fidgeting hands. The clicking stopped. 

“They gonna add twenty years to a hundred?” Dutch asked. “They wanna come after me, they gotta know – I’m taking those fuckers with me.” 

No one said anything. Johnny wondered if Dutch thought this kind of talk was supposed to inspire them all. But all he could see was the way that Tommy was going pale, the way Jimmy was picking at his fingernails. 

“You good?” Dutch asked, and when Johnny looked up, his eyes were on him. 

“Let’s go.” 

***

When the doors to the van opened, Amanda was ready. She’d had her hand on her gun for the last few minutes, poised and taut like a violin string. She didn’t want to lose even a second when the time came. “They’re coming out!” she said, and the agents converged, a choreographed move she never got tired of. 

“On the ground!” Bobby shouted, and the agents were blocking her way; she shouldered past them, her gun raised. “Get on the ground!” 

Something was wrong; she could feel it in the way the agents closest to Bobby had straightened up, out of their formation, dropping their weapons to the side. “Get out of the way,” she muttered, moving past Stingray, who still stubbornly had his gun up. 

It was a homeless man, by the look of him, on the ground and cuffed, wincing past the morning sunlight, confused. 

“Fuck!” she shouted, loud enough that the agents closest to her took a hasty step backward. 

Bobby was by her side in a moment. “Do you want me to make the call? Close the bridges?” 

Stingray sidled up. “They must have had him drive the van and followed him in a car we don’t have…” 

“Nothing gets past you,” Amanda muttered under her breath. “Except the people you’re salaried not to let get past you.” 

_“Easy.”_

“Closing the bridge is a metaphor, Bobby,” Amanda continued as if the reprimand hadn’t been spoken. “You don’t close a bridge in Charlestown. There’s five. Unless you want me to just block an artery of traffic and make our embarrassment even more public.” 

“Okay,” Bobby held his hand up. “Just asking.” 

She dropped a stiff hand to his shoulder in an apology she was too angry to speak, and he nodded. 

***

The street outside the hotel was blessedly empty. Johnny kept his eye on the crew as they loaded up their own van, a rusted, shoddy number, closing himself in last. The ride to their destination is largely silent – no one wanted to talk about the possibilities anyway, not when possibilities was always code for complications. Instead, he kept his eyes on the buildings as they passed, lingering on the Catholic school, kids still milling about in the front. 

They drive around the block at least three times, because Johnny can’t stop looking at the kids on the playground – he sees Robby, even though Robby is too young to be there, Shannon too poor to send him to a private school – until Tommy speaks. 

“Here we go,” he said, and Johnny doesn’t even check to make sure he’s seeing the right armored car. He just picks up his mask – a thick plastic one that looks like a nun, because it has a hood – and slips it on, pulling his AK higher, no longer caring if it’s visible. 

He looked out the window again – and locked eyes with a blond boy on the sidewalk outside the school, his backpack bright green and his eyes soft blue. 

The boy stared at him, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t speak, and as soon as Johnny breaks eye contact, the kid runs for the school, past the teacher and into the building. Johnny makes sure he’s inside before he nods at Dutch, who shoves the door open and launches himself into the street. 

He sees everything in slow motion – the thudding of his heartbeat is a bass drum kicking against his ribs, threatening to knock him awry with every beat. He sees one attendant with the dolly and the other by the door. He sees the guns at their waist. No way those pistols could stop the AKs they have strapped across their chest. 

He sees Dutch get the guy by the door, a quick hit on the back with the butt of his weapon. The man goes down in a heap, hands already up, a reflex that Johnny sees with some irony. 

“Stay down,” Dutch said, and Johnny can see the one with the dolly deciding to fight instead of go still. 

He lifted the gun, aiming it at the remaining attendant. “Get on the ground,” he said, flat and business-like. The man’s hand goes to his waist, and Johnny steps forward, a quick slide in, a hit across the jaw, and the man goes down too, almost catching Johnny’s mask on the way down. Dutch gets into the car, and Johnny watches him gather the bags of money. 

The one Dutch subdued shifted on the ground, and Johnny points the gun at him immediately, his hand on the trigger. “Think about it,” he said. “Thirteen dollars an hour.” 

_It’s not worth it,_ he thought, but didn’t say out loud. _Don’t let your life end for money that isn’t yours._

He shifts slightly and sees pedestrians watching. No one is making any move to stop them, no one is even reaching for their phone. 

Suddenly, he feels sick. 

“Call went out!” Tommy shouted from the car. 

Dutch tossed a bag at Johnny and time speeds up again, so fast that Johnny feels like he might not be able to keep up. They make it to the car and slam the doors close. Johnny can hear his breathing, loud and labored in the mask. 

***

Bobby’s arm caught Amanda on her way back to the car. She expected this; she did need to apologize for snapping at him earlier. 

“Look, I’m sorry –”

“BankNorth,” he said, and she understood immediately. 

***

They aren’t even down the street before a cruiser, lit up like a Christmas tree, is behind them, weaving like the machine itself was anxious. Johnny felt his throat tighten. That was too fast – this was too fast. 

“Must have been down the street,” he said, trying for nonchalance for the sake of everyone else in the car. Dutch pulls his mask over his face but Johnny can feel his eyes on him. 

“Get ready to light ‘em up,” he said, and Tommy, in the rear view, gave him a curt nod. The car immediately stops, the brakes locking and screaming against the asphalt, and Dutch shoves one door open, Johnny the other, and their AKs are leveled before Johnny can even think about the muscle movement necessary to do it. 

“Go!” Dutch shouted. 

But Johnny’s eyes go past the police cruiser, the man inside already cowering, to children on a playground behind them. 

“Wait, wait, _don’t!_ ” 

“Fuck!”

The van is moving again and Johnny almost falls out of it, his eyes on a blond boy at the top of the slide. His heart clenches again. 

The chase is so fast and stressful that Johnny kept his eyes closed for most of it, feeling the car careen to the left and the right so forcefully that he didn’t understand how they were still upright. But the sirens are a little farther off, and that’s enough for him. 

And then they’re coming to another halt, the van sliding sideways to block the whole street and Dutch is piling out, the bags on his shoulders, and Tommy is grabbing the bleach and Jimmy the gasoline and the matches. 

And then there’s another cruiser, and another, and Dutch is aiming and firing at them, the rattling sound of the bullets reverberating through his chest. Johnny watched as one of the officers took a graze to the shoulder and went down, taking cover behind the open door of his cruiser. 

That’s more than enough to dissuade the other cops, who take ineffective shots from relative safety, and Dutch, even with his mask on, has the body language of someone smug. 

They’re in the other car in less than a minute, and Johnny watches the van go up in flames from the backseat. 

***

The call that they got away comes to Amanda’s phone. She answered the call and didn’t speak. 

“Bobby,” she said, her phone by her hip, the person on the other end forgotten. “Bobby.” 

“What?” 

“Close the bridge.” 

“ _What_?” 

“Close the fucking bridge!” 

****

“They’re going to close the bridge,” Jimmy said, his ears stuck to the police scanner. “They’re closing the fuckin’ bridge, we’re not going to make it.” 

Tommy pressed on the gas, weaving between cars, flying past a cruiser that hadn’t turned on its lights yet. “Yes we are, fucker. We are going to make it.” 

“Buckle up, kids,” Dutch said with a laugh, pulling his mask off. “Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle.” 

Johnny wanted to snap at him, but there was no point. He watched the car fly, sliding between lanes, almost scraping on the shoulder, the needle on the speedometer going higher and higher. His heartbeat is thundering again, a kick-kick-kick against his throat now, and he wondered if he might actually be sick. 

He swallows it down. 

Their over to the other side of the bridge before Johnny can even realize it, and behind them, he sees cruisers starting to block the bridge from traffic. 

“That’s how you drive a fucking car!” Tommy shouted, and Dutch cheered, Jimmy heaved a sigh, and Johnny said nothing. 

***

He doesn’t remember the rest of the car ride to the second switch car. He remembered watching the buildings slip by, he remembered thinking about what was going to happen if he got caught. What would he tell Daniel? Would he get the opportunity to tell Daniel? 

He remembered him in the morning, when he had slipped out of bed, asleep on his side, his hair tousled and dark against his pale sheets, his skin tanner than Johnny had originally realized when he could see so much of it, the sheet pulled down to his waist, the little dimples on the small of his back tempting and hidden in shadow. 

He’d pressed a kiss to the side of his head on his way out, knowing now more keenly than ever that he might not come back to this – he might not get the chance. 

And then his train of thought was interrupted by the car coming to a halt. They’re all out of the car in an instant, loading the next car, breathing a little easier now. Johnny has the gasoline this time. 

It’s Dutch who sees the cop first. He goes still, his hand on his weapon, and then Johnny looks, and then Tommy and then Jimmy. The cop is sitting in his cruiser, a cup of coffee halfway to his lips, chubby and balding and a different kind of white than Irish because his cheeks aren’t ruddy. 

There’s a long moment of stillness…and Johnny wonders if this is going to be when he becomes a murderer – and then the cop looks pointedly in the other direction. 

They continue with their routine, Johnny careful to keep an eye on the cop the whole time, and Dutch doesn’t start to laugh until they’re in the next car and the other one is burning behind them. 

“Why aren’t there more guys like that in uniform?” Tommy said, and Dutch laughed louder. 

***

Amanda can feel the rage simmering beneath her skin. She’d had bad days before; tons of bad days, in fact, that all paled in comparison to this one. She stares at the Jeep, still smoking in the midday sun, simmering the street in front of her. 

“They missed them at the bridge?” she asked Bobby, who sighs. 

“Yes, they missed them at the bridge, just like they missed them at the bridge thirty seconds ago when you asked.” 

She heaved a breath through her nose. “Fuck,” she said, just loud enough that the forensics guy in front of her flinched. “ _Fuck_. Print the van.” 

“Print the van?” Bobby repeated. “What do you mean, print the van? The van is a fucking volcano.” 

“Go find me something that looks like a fucking print, then,” she sneered. “Because right now they’re burning the money bands in a safe house with someone’s cousin’s wife’s sister who got paid twenty thousand not to be home for the day. Their alibis were paid a week in advance. We won’t find any DNA here or on the switch car. And that, as they say, is the end of that.” She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling her knuckles catching on tangles. “This is the ‘not fucking around’ gang. So, get me something that looks like a print so I can shake their tree. ‘Cause the not fucking around thing can go both ways.” 

***

Johnny was glad that the cops picked them all up the next day. Those few hours had been precious; he had split the money with concentrated speed and left Dutch, Jimmy, and Tommy to get shitfaced without him. 

Daniel answered the door after only one knock, a weak smile already on his face. 

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” he said, and there was a sad undercurrent there, like someone else had done the same thing to him. It ached, deep in Johnny’s chest. He didn’t think he would get the opportunity to come back either. 

He pulls Daniel against the closed front door, impatient and ragged, and kissed him, determined to be soft, to be gentle, the way he should have been the night before. 

“I just had some things to take care of,” he said into Daniel’s hair, pressing a kiss there, to the same spot he’d kissed him goodbye that morning. 

“Yeah?” Daniel asked, pulling back to look at him better, still holding Johnny around the waist. “Did you take care of it?” 

“I’m not finished,” Johnny said, dipping in to tilt Daniel’s jaw up with his nose. “I just wanted to see you so you wouldn’t worry.” 

“What is it?” Daniel asked, too perceptive, and altogether too tempting, and Johnny considered, again, telling him the truth.

“Just stupid family stuff,” he said. “Well, people who are like family. It’s a lot of drama. But it should be taken care of in a couple of days, and then I want to do something special for you. Okay?” 

Daniel kissed him again, an appeased peck that Johnny wanted a thousand more of. “You’re going to spoil me, Johnny Lawrence.” 

“That’s the plan.” 

He was still thinking about spoiling Daniel the next day, while he was dealing with his mindless day job. He hadn’t been at work for an hour before the foreman stopped him, jutting his thumb at the officers, standing by the street. He took off his hardhat and left it behind.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am without excuse for my long absence - I got distracted by other ideas and focused on other stuff. But my other huge multi-chap is finished, so hopefully I can put some more focus here! Those of you still reading, thanks for your patience!

Johnny wished he could see what everyone else looked like in the back of their own patrol cars. Because they were all picked up at the same time – he knew the drill. He settled deeper into the seats, trying to find some comfort in the purposefully uncomfortable seats, turning toward the window to take some of the ache off of his handcuffed arms. 

He could picture it now – Tommy and Jimmy would be a little nervous – they weren’t as used to this as he and Dutch were, but they had been through the process since they were eleven years old for stealing cars, breaking into places they shouldn’t be. 

But Dutch would be calm. He would lift his chin for what he called the “perfect” mugshot. _Gotta work your angles,_ he’d laugh at the man behind the camera, giving him a cheeky wink. Johnny, knowing that Dutch was pushing buttons somewhere else, settled for just taking the mugshot and saying nothing. It was easier to get out if you didn’t speak too much. 

He was deposited into an interrogation room, one that he could almost believe he’d seen the inside of before. They all looked the same, but it brought him a moment’s reprieve that this was just the repetition of a cycle he had gotten out of before. 

He sat in the room alone for a long time, which meant these guys thought he was the ringleader of the whole crew. It brought him a moment of pride before the anxiety slipped in after. If they were right about that, what else would they be right about? 

***

Tommy squinted down at the transcript in front of him. The cop – a ruddy-faced, overweight Irishman (typical) shoved his sausage finger into the paper, sliding it up a few inches. Tommy grimaced at the oily digit. 

“Read from here,” the man said, his Boston accent thick. 

“From here?” Tommy asked, pointing at the wrong spot. 

“What’s the matter? None of you Charlestown fucks know how to read?” 

Tommy grinned and cleared his throat an unnecessary amount of times. “I got a gun,” he mumbled, trying to force his laughter back when the officer next to him squirmed impatiently. “Messenger, don’t fuck around.” 

He was garbling his words so much it came out like _“mesngerdonfukaroun,”_ and earned a smack on the back of the head from the officer for his trouble. 

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” the officer complained. “From the top of the page again, like you’ve actually got a gun or something.” 

“Hey, who wrote this shit?” Tommy replied, turning away from the paper, knowing how it would drive the officer up the wall. “I’m just trying to make it sound authentitious.” 

“Authen- _what_?” 

***

In the end, they collected Johnny from the room he was in and put him in another one, this one at the end of the hall. He wondered if that meant that they were going to beat him with a phone book, which he thought was a little cliché, or if there were just too many people behind the glass watching to fit in a normal interrogation room. 

There were two chairs on the other side of the table, and before he could collect his thoughts, Bobby was pushing the door open, a file in his hand. 

“Fuck,” Johnny muttered, just loud enough that Bobby could hear him. He met Bobby’s quizzical gaze without apology, his jaw clenched. He remembered Bobby from the neighborhood, from elementary school. 

Seeing him on the other side of the table was nothing but a middle finger to Charlestown. 

“I knew your dad,” Bobby finally said, settling into the seat. 

“Yeah, me too,” Johnny replied. 

“Got a few years left on his bid.” 

Johnny rolled his eyes. Textbook. Leave it to Bobby fuckin’ Brown to lack the imagination for even a fun interrogation. 

“I heard they got him last year. Split him up the back,” Bobby continued, opening Johnny’s file like Sid’s fucking story was printed there too. “You think they’d go after someone younger. Making a statement, I guess. Charlestown crew ain’t what it used to be. Maybe you can change that up there with him.” 

Johnny didn’t move, didn’t speak. There was nothing for him to say, no question. 

“You know we pulled a print off the van, right?” Bobby finally asked when he wouldn’t speak. 

They didn’t pull a print off the fucking van, because they couldn’t have, but Johnny took his opportunity. 

“Let me ask you something,” he said, leaning forward in his seat. “Let’s say someone is around a group of people, just by chance. So naturally, because they associate with him, he has personal information about those people. Work, neighborhood, whatever. Now let’s say that person gives that information to the police for money. What do you call him?”

Bobby leaned back in his chair, away from him. Johnny allowed a small smile. 

“A rat. Now let’s say that person has a badge, what do you call him?” He paused, and then pointed a finger at Bobby. “Bobby the dego from Somerville. The cops need to know who had an abortion, who got thrown out by their aunt. Big B.”

Bobby shifted in his seat like he was going to stand up, but Johnny pressed forward anyway, knowing that the sound of his voice would keep him in his place. 

“But let me ask you something, Bobby, the neighborhood expert, when your friends here decide to get serious and go on the big operations, how come they always put you in the back seat?”

He hadn’t let his voice sound so cruel in a long time. Daniel forced his way into his thoughts, and momentarily, Johnny felt guilty. And then the door opened, and a woman slipped in, no file in her hands. She walked to Bobby’s side and offered him a sideways glance, something that was almost apologetic. Then she turned her blue eyes on Johnny, and he felt a chill. 

_Here_ was their brains. 

“Do you know what they tell us at the academy, Mr. Lawrence?” she asked, and there was steel in her voice. “During interrogations, always begin treating the subject kindly so as to win his trust, the logic being that you can always turn ugly later, but it’s very difficult to start off unsympathetic and later become a trusted figure.” 

She leaned forward on her hands, a sneer twisting her mouth. 

“I gotta say, even in light of all of that, Johnny, I think you’re a fucking shithead.” 

He wanted to smile. He held it back, careful to only let his eyes drop to Bobby for half a second, his eyebrows raised. 

“And you fucked up,” she continued. “Look at _me_ , asshole.” He pulled his eyes away from Bobby and refocused on her, all dark hair and pale skin, a picture of an avenging angel. “You fucked up. “You hit a car in the North End with AKs and body armor and left. .762 rounds on the streets of Boston.”

He hated Dutch for a moment. 

“400 bank robberies a year in Charlestown, and you want to know what Most Wanted number you are, asshole?” she asked. She held up one finger. “Congrats, I’ve bet you’ve never been number one at anything in your entire life. But here’s where I have a problem. You’re threatening my job and my friend’s jobs, and that’s something I’m not going to sit back and allow. And I want to make this clear – at this point, prosecution will bandy around the idea of a reduced sentence for cooperation.” 

She gave him a grin, menacing and cold and somehow still beautiful. 

“Not this time. I’m here to tell you personally that you are going to die in federal prison. And so are all of your friends. So when you start to stab each other in the back – and you will – you will not find a friend here. It’ll be me that tells you to go fuck yourself.” 

Johnny turned his mock-surprised face to Bobby, who was looking almost affectionately down at the dark-haired woman. He couldn’t blame him. He was impressed. 

“I thought it would be the federal prosecution telling me to go fuck myself,” he said, directing the comment at Bobby. He turned back to the woman. “But I am glad you’re here,” he said. “Because this room smelled like piss and you’re wearing a very nice perfume.” 

He saw the satisfaction in her eyes melt to fury. Good. 

“Get the fuck out of here,” Bobby growled, and Johnny shrugged. This was how it always went. 

Shake the tree and hope they slipped up. But they wouldn’t. 

“Take it easy, guys,” he said at the door. “And good luck with that print.” 

***

“I got you something,” he said, tugging Daniel gently by the hand to make him stop walking. They were standing in a mall food court, of all places, but even after hours of trying to find the right place, Johnny was still coming up empty. And he was getting antsy. He had been antsy since he walked out of that interrogation room and waited in his apartment for Dutch to call. 

He’d been anxious even while Dutch reassured him that everything went according to plan. They shook their tree and nothing had come off. 

“You don’t have to get me things,” Daniel protested lightly while Johnny fumbled for the little box in the pocket of his baggy jeans. 

“I do,” he said, passing the box over. He knew how it looked – a tiny velvet box, just slightly too big to be a ring. Daniel’s eyes were wary, curious, and he let his fingers trace over the material before opening it. 

It was a necklace, a long chain with a lotus flower hanging off the end, the same symbol he’d seen on Daniel’s old karate headband, now hanging in a picture frame in his apartment. He wasn’t sure how well the gift would go over – Shannon had always liked it when he bought her jewelry, but he was pretty sure expectations were different between men and women, and Daniel definitely seemed like someone who would take issue with an expensive gift. 

“I – I got it because you make me happy, and I don’t know how to thank you for that other than to buy you things,” he caught Daniel’s wide eyes, shimmering at the edges, and took that as a good sign. “I realize that makes me shallow, but I hope you can see past that and forgive me.” 

That startled a laugh out of Daniel, whose eyes had gone back to the necklace, to the symbol of his childhood. 

“Johnny,” he said, looking up at him with his lovely caramel eyes. “I – I can’t take this. It must have been expensive.” 

“If I tell you I got it out of a quarter machine at the pizza place, will you put it on?” Johnny asked. Daniel cocked an eyebrow at him disbelievingly. Truthfully, the necklace was one of the most expensive things he’d ever bought – he had to find someone to make the lotus flower custom, but he was willing to tell Daniel it was cheap if that meant he’d keep it. “I mean, you can hock it if you want, but I’m not taking it back.” 

Daniel chuckled again, but his fingers were pulling the necklace out of its box. “How – how can you afford this?” he asked, and Johnny gently turned him around to fasten the chain around his neck. 

“I have a job, LaRusso,” he said into his ear, satisfied when he shivered. “I put away some money.” 

“I thought it was only a quarter.” 

“I saved up _a whole quarter_.” 

Daniel turned to face him, the chain leaving the lotus flower right near the middle of his chest. “I quit my job today.” 

Johnny felt his heartbeat grow louder in his ears. Had Daniel been so traumatized that he had to leave his job forever? Or was he trying to tell him something? 

He swallowed and kissed his forehead. “Okay,” he began, taking Daniel’s hand so they could keep walking. “What were you thinking of doing instead?” 

“Teach maybe,” Daniel said, swinging their joined hands a little. “Volunteer more.” 

“What if I told you I’m thinking about quitting my job?” Johnny asked. Daniel looked up at him with a wan smile, as if Johnny was only saying it to make him feel better about quitting his own job. 

“Then I guess I’ll have company,” he said.

He said it like it wasn’t really going to happen, like Johnny was just talking about what he’d like to do if he won the lottery one day. It was all a big hypothetical, a giant question mark that would never change. 

“How many people do you know that have changed their lives?” he asked into the silence. Daniel looked up at him, eyes bright. 

“Not very many,” he said truthfully. 

Johnny squeezed his hand. “I’m going to change mine.” Daniel smiled up at him, hopeful and understanding even though he had no idea what that effort would cost. “Why –” he swallowed past the lump in his throat, pressed forward. “Why don’t you do it with me?” 

Daniel tugged him to a stop, blinking in confusion. 

“Take the money we have,” Johnny continued, but even to his ears it sounded a little desperate. “Quit our jobs.” 

“Where would we go?” Daniel asked, and it was almost a yes, not a complete denial or a laugh, and Johnny thought he might fall over in relief. 

“Wherever we want,” Johnny said, but he knew they would go to California. The beaches, the warmth, the freedom. He could see Daniel lounging on a beach in California, olive skin shining in the setting sun. 

Daniel bit his lip and turned away, leaving the statement hanging. “You know that newspaper? The Town?” 

Johnny blinked, heat rushing to his face like he was being rejected. “The free paper? Yeah.” 

“It keeps getting sent to my apartment building and it just piles up,” Daniel said, and he was looking across the courtyard like he wanted to keep walking but didn’t move. “I was recycling them the other day when I noticed – a guy on the cover. The guy who tried to mug me.” 

His throat went dry. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah, there was an article about how he was robbed and someone shot him.” 

He hated Dutch. Daniel’s eyes were on him, dark and too intelligent, watching him closely for a reaction. His fingers were numb, the overwhelming urge to confess almost bowled him over. How much could he salvage if he said something now? 

“They say who did it?” he asked, his voice hoarse. 

“Local gangsters,” Daniel said, blinking. “Apparently he was terrified of them. Too terrified to identify them.” 

Johnny shrugged. “Shouldn’t have been dealing drugs.” 

“What makes you think he was dealing drugs?” Daniel asked, and there was that knowing look again, that plea hidden in his eyes. 

_Just be honest._

“What else would he be getting robbed for?” Johnny asked. “I grew up here, believe me.” 

“Yeah,” Daniel said softly, looking away. “Yeah, you’re right.” 

***

He hated going to the prison. There was a looming sense of dread over the whole place, though Daniel would call that his guilty conscience. But Johnny didn’t mind going through security, didn’t mind making small talk with the pigs who checked his wallet for contraband. He minded having to come here at all. He minded seeing Sid. 

He managed to make it almost a year between visits, only dropping by when he needed something or when he needed to give Sid an update. Even that was a chore. 

The man sitting on the other side of the glass was withered and gray in every sense of the word. His skin, his hair, his nails. Everything different shades of grey. 

“’bout time you come here,” Sid grumbled, settling into his seat. 

“Thinking about going dark,” he said shortly. “Taking a trip.” 

“Yeah?” Sid asked, suddenly interested. “You taking heat?” 

“Just making a change,” Johnny said diplomatically. 

“Fuck making a change,” Sid spat. “Either you’re taking heat or you’re not.” He paused, looking over his shoulder for the guard. “I heard a bread truck got dropped.” 

Their armored car. “Really? I didn’t.” 

“Read the paper,” Sid snapped, irritated.

“That’s it, wrap it up!” A guard was crowding in behind his father. Johnny sighed in relief and tried to stand up. 

“Alright, Sid –”

“Stop, wait, hold on, I’ve got something to say,” Sid said, waving off the guard, who gave him an annoyed look and retreated. “You remember when your mother left?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I never seen a kid cry so hard,” Sid said, with a laugh almost in his voice. Like it was fucking nostalgic. “You started throwing up. I told you if you looked hard enough, she might come back. Trying to make it better for you.” 

Johnny wanted to contradict him. He didn’t make shit better for him – Sid made nothing better or easy. 

But he was still talking. “Then you turn around and carried that like it was your fault. It wasn’t. There’s nothing wrong with you—and there’s nothing wrong with me. There was something wrong with your mother. Plenty.” Johnny could feel those childish tears welling up again, a defiant rejection of Sid’s words. But he could hear the truth in them – the honesty. 

“That’s the last thing I owe you,” Sid said, standing up. “I’ll see you again,” he said resolutely, leaning in to tap the glass. “This side or the other.”


End file.
